


The Last Broken Thing

by Always_Questioning



Category: The Prince of Egypt (1998)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Everyone Is Gay, F/F, Friends to Lovers, Historical References, Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault, Implied/Referenced Sexual Harassment, Midrash, On Hiatus, Recovery, Slavery
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-22
Updated: 2020-10-05
Packaged: 2020-10-21 00:38:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 28
Words: 38,358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20684606
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Always_Questioning/pseuds/Always_Questioning
Summary: Miriam only ever wanted two things: freedom for her people and reunion with her little brother. Romance never crossed her mind. But when fate brings her to Midian, she finds the freedom she craved, the brother she lost, and the love she never knew she needed.Or, "The Prince of Egypt but with lesbians." Canon-divergent, Miriam/Tzipporah, with a surprising number of allusions to traditional Torah commentary and midrash.Temporarily on hiatus.





	1. Prologue

The sprawling city of Goshen stretched dark and silent around Tzipporah. Not a single person walked the streets, besides herself. She was grateful for that. She didn’t want any slaves implicated in her escape. If she could get out without being seen, and get away before a search was called –but would a search be called? Was she valuable enough to justify one? And then there was the question of the prince, who had let her escape. If she were caught, would he let her go again?

She shook her head to banish such thoughts. No point wondering. She needed to get away as quickly as possible. Taking her camel had been a risk. The beast had no idea it needed to be stealthy, and every grunt from it made her quicken her pace. But if a search was called, the Egyptians would take horses or camels, and she’d never outrun them on foot. Besides, it was _her_ camel, captured along with her. She intended to take back what was hers.

Somewhere in the distance, a donkey brayed. The camel stopped and turned towards the sound. Tzipporah jerked the reins impatiently. When the camel refused to move, she slapped its rump, and the animal responded with a loud, grumbling groan.

“Then move!” she hissed at it. “Come on!” The camel grudgingly started walking again.

Tzipporah swallowed, suddenly aware of how dry her throat was. She’d need water for the journey home. In her effort to get in and out of the stables as quickly as possible, she had neglected to look for a wineskin or something else to carry water in. Which meant she would have to steal from one of the slave houses.

_I’ll find a well_, she thought. _Maybe someone left a jar there._ It was a foolish wish, and she knew it. People this poor guarded what little they had. They wouldn’t leave something useful lying around for passing strangers.

_Think of it this way,_ she told herself. _Imagine if the situation were reversed. If an escaping slave passed through Midian and stole something, would you begrudge them for it? Of course not_.

The camel tugged at the reins, nearly pulling them from her grasp. She yanked back, only to realize what the camel had been straining towards: a well. Her heart rose for a moment. Then she saw the two people standing near the well, and her heart sank again.

No point hiding. They had already seen her. She walked towards them with her head held high.

Both were slaves. She could tell that from their faded clothes and the fear that flashed in their eyes as she approached. The man was tall and thin, the woman shorter and sturdy. Even in the dim moonlight, Tzipporah could see the similarities in their faces: the same dark curls in their hair, the same shape to their noses. Maybe cousins, more likely siblings.

She noted the two jars standing at the base of the well.

_They must have been getting water for themselves._

“I mean you no harm,” Tzipporah said. “I’m escaping Egypt. Please, I need water. I have a long journey ahead of me.“

The woman’s face softened. Without a word, she picked up one of the jars and offered it to Tzipporah. The man frowned, but did not object. Tzipporah tied the jar onto her camel’s saddle, wishing she could ask the woman’s name. It was safer not to, of course. The less they all knew, the less they could tell any guards who came around asking questions.

The camel grunted again as Tzipporah climbed into the saddle. Then it stood, and she looked down at the two slaves. Unlike the prince, they could expect only punishment for helping her if they were caught.

She was half afraid they would ask to come with her. The camel couldn’t carry three people. But neither did.

“Thank you,” Tzipporah said. Gratitude wasn’t enough, but it was all she had to give.

“May God protect you,” the woman replied. She had large, solemn eyes, bright as stars.

Tzipporah had never had much luck asking God for anything. But the woman spoke with such conviction. Perhaps the prayer would do some good.

She did not look back as she rode away. She did not expect to ever see them again.

_May God protect them._


	2. Chapter 2

Miriam lay facedown on her cot, trying not to move. Any movement, even a single deep breath, sent fresh pain shooting across her back.

Aaron sat beside her, methodically cleaning the blood and dirt from her wounds. He had already collected fabric scraps for bandages. When his hands touched her back, she felt him shaking. This was always the worst part of being whipped. She could handle the pain, and the shame, and the looks of pity from the other slaves. But facing Aaron –his raw fear, his trembling hands, the protective way he held her when he helped her stumble home afterwards –that was nearly unbearable.

“Why did you have to touch him?” Aaron asked. His voice was even, and that worried her. Normally, even when he spoke about things of no consequence, Aaron stumbled over his words and repeated himself.

Miriam kept her gaze on the floor as she spoke. “He’s our brother. He was confused and afraid after he killed that guard. I wanted to talk to him.”

“You wanted to talk to him,” Aaron repeated.

She was relieved to hear sarcasm creeping into his voice. Sarcasm was better than fear.

“Moses may be our brother, but he’s also a prince of Egypt. You know that. You know slaves can’t touch royalty.”

Looking straight ahead, she saw Aaron’s shadow moving across the wall, darkness dancing against light. She did not want to look at him directly yet.

“I didn’t think he would run away. I thought he was ready to help us,” she said.

She heard Aaron dip the cloth into water, wring it out, and return to wiping away the blood. He touched an especially tender spot, and she gasped.

“Sorry,” Aaron said quickly.

“I’m fine,” she said, though as the words were spoken through gritted teeth, there was no chance Aaron believed her.

Aaron stayed silent for almost a minute. Then he said, “These are worse than usual.”

Now it was her turn to be silent.

“Well?” said Aaron. “They nearly beat you to death for touching Moses. What are you going to do next time you see him? Are you going to try to talk to him again?”

“Let it go, Aaron.” She used her older-sister tone, the slight edge that she thought made her sound older. Aaron said it made her sound like their mother.

“You keep doing things like this, Miriam. Are you trying to get yourself killed?”

“I wasn’t going to get myself killed. God protected me. He always does,” she said.

“He didn’t protect you from being whipped in the first place, did He? And He didn’t protect you the time before that, or the time before that. Every time, you’re the one who provokes the guards, and every time, I’m the one who has to beg for your life to be spared.”

Aaron’s voice shook. Miriam’s heart ached. She knew how much Aaron hated seeing her beaten. The first time it had happened, she had been eleven years old and Aaron only eight. He had cried for days afterwards, cried far longer and harder than she had. In the following years, he’d stopped crying but hadn’t stopped being afraid. No matter how often Miriam insisted that God would protect her, Aaron remained convinced that one day, the guards would kill her. She didn’t like frightening him by speaking out, but someone had to do something. What did their two lives matter, weighed against the thousands who might be inspired by her shows of defiance?

Aaron dropped the cloth into the water. He helped her sit up, his hands steady on her shoulders.

“That’s the best I can do. I’ll get the bandages. Let me know if I tie them too tight,” he said.

She nodded. It took a surprising amount of concentration to keep herself upright. The loss of blood had made her dizzy, and her vision kept blurring. She closed her eyes.

Aaron’s footsteps sounded against the dirt floor. Miriam felt him wrap bandages around her torso, moving slowly so as not to hurt her any further. The pain was starting to fade, or else she’d become so used to it that she had ceased to feel it.

Aaron resumed speaking. “Moses probably doesn’t even know you were whipped because of him. He’ll be pardoned for killing that guard and back at the palace by tomorrow, just you wait. Nothing will change.”

She had heard bitterness in Aaron’s voice before, but never bitterness like this. He sounded quietly, hopelessly furious, like a man who sees a great wave coming and stands powerless to stop it.

“He knows who he is now. He’ll be back to free us, I know it,” she said.

Aaron tied off the bandages. He left them loose enough for her to breathe easily.

_He’s had to do this too many times. Please, Moses, come back soon. I can bear it, but I don’t know how much longer Aaron can._


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains non-explicit discussion of rape.

The days after Tzipporah’s return to Midian passed in a blur of reunions. Her father hugged her as though he intended to never let her go, his voice hoarse with tears. Yiska and Keturah, her two youngest sisters, clung to her and sobbed. Only Ephorah, the oldest of her little sisters, did not cry. She hugged Tzipporah, and listened raptly to the story of what had happened in Egypt. Since then, she had become oddly distant.

Tzipporah noticed the distance, but didn’t wonder at it. When Ephorah wanted to talk, she could talk. Besides, the journey had left Tzipporah too exhausted for useless speculation. Even under the best of circumstances, crossing the desert was no easy task, and escaping slavery was not the best of circumstances.

Then, Moses had the audacity to show up. His dramatic story of secrets revealed and flight from Egypt eclipsed Tzipporah’s tale of escape. It irked her that Moses got credit for “rescuing” her, but technically, he had helped. Not much, but at least he wasn’t completely undeserving of her father’s praise. And she’d already dropped him in the well. Any further revenge would have been excessive.

In any case, she was home. That mattered more than any ex-prince’s story.

Still, she disliked being around the man who had mocked her in front of a jeering Egyptian crowd. She was grateful to return to the hills where the tribe’s sheep grazed. The sheep didn’t remember her. Sheep never remembered much of anything. But she remembered the solid feel of a staff in her hands, the crispness of the morning air, the oily texture of wool. These things grounded her. She didn’t fully feel like she’d returned home until she had returned to the flock.

Ephorah joined her in the afternoon. Tzipporah had brought food, but she certainly didn’t object to Ephorah bringing fresh dates and water still cool from the well. They sat on a rock and ate together. Ephorah updated her on how the sheep had fared in her absence. Disease had claimed two sheep. Wolves had taken another.

“Is there any good news?” Tzipporah asked, only half sarcastically.

“The abscess on the old ram’s leg healed. Father thinks he’ll make it another year or two.”

“Let’s hope he breeds this year. We’ll need more lambs to replace the sheep that died.”

Ephorah nodded. She watched the old ram. More accurately, she faced in his general direction. Her eyes didn’t focus on anything. Tzipporah cleared her throat to get her sister’s attention. Ephorah flinched.

“What’s wrong with you?” Tzipporah asked.

“Nothing.”

“You’ve been quiet.”

“I’ve always been quiet. Not like Yiska. She never shuts up.”

“Don’t talk about your sister like that.”

“Sorry.”

Tzipporah tried and failed to detect any real remorse in Ephorah’s voice. “Something’s wrong,” she insisted. “What is it?”

Ephorah crossed her arms over her chest. She stared stubbornly away over the grassy field. “It’s not important. Just something I overheard,” she said.

“Fine. Tell me who you overheard, and I’ll go talk to them.”

“It was just some men talking about you…”

“What were they saying?”

Ephorah still wouldn’t look at her. Tzipporah got up from the rock. She circled around, forcing Ephorah to meet her gaze or look away again. Ephorah chose the latter option.

“You can tell me or I can ask around until I find out,” Tzipporah said.

“No. I don’t want you to hear it from them.” Ephorah’s fists clenched. She closed her eyes, sucked in a deep breath as though preparing to dive underwater, and opened them again. “They were saying you can’t get married. Not after being enslaved.”

Tzipporah felt a weight in her stomach colder than well water and heavier than a stone. Ephorah wasn’t old enough to know what the Egyptians did to female slaves. Was she?

“What does Egypt have to do with anything? I’m fine. I even got the camel back.” She forced a light, confident tone into her voice. It did not work.

Ephorah’s eyes went as hard as flint. “You said you were presented as a ‘gift.’ I know what that means. I’m not a child any more.”

The whole world stilled. Not a single gust of wind stirred the grass.

“Are people saying I was raped?” Tzipporah asked. The last word burned in her mouth like a hot coal.

Ephorah clenched a fistful of her dress in her right hand. When she spoke, she sounded like the child she had just claimed not to be.

“I know you don’t want me to know what happens outside Midian, but I still hear the stories. When the slavers took you, I knew what they were going to do. And now you can’t get married, because no one will believe you’re a virgin.”

Ephorah did not cry easily. She wasn’t crying now. Her shoulders trembled from the effort of not crying.

Tzipporah’s heart fluttered like an injured bird. She moved forward and wrapped her arms around her sister.

“No one touched me,” she said. “I swear to you, no one touched me.”

“You don’t have to lie to me,” Ephorah said, her voice muffled. “I won’t tell Yiska and Keturah. They’re not old enough.”

“_You’re_ not old enough to be worrying about this.”

“You’re my sister!” Ephorah pulled out of the hug, her eyes bright not with tears, but with anger. “Of course I worried about you! You went out and didn’t come back. We knew it was slavers, not wolves, because we saw the tracks. But the search party Father sent couldn’t find you. I had to just sit here, lying to Yiska and Keturah that everything was fine, you’d come back somehow.”

“I _did_ come back.”

“Yes, but don’t pretend you’re fine. You thrashed around in your sleep last night like you were having a nightmare. You’ve never had nightmares before.”

The cold weight in Tzipporah’s stomach grew colder and heavier. She _had_ been having nightmares. Dreams of what could have happened, if she hadn’t managed to escape…

“Listen,” she said. She leaned down to get on eye level with her sister. “I’ve had nightmares, but they’re just bad dreams. The Egyptians tried to humiliate me. What I told you about the banquet was true. But that was all they did.”

Doubt still creased Ephorah’s brow. She had always been the most devout of the family, more so even than Father. So Tzipporah stepped back, placed a fist over her heart, and said, “I swear upon God’s name, no one raped me.”

Ephorah glanced up reflexively, no doubt checking for the lightning bolts rumored to punish false vows. None appeared.

“Okay,” she said. Her voice wobbled. She swallowed twice before speaking again. “I believe you. I don’t think other people will, though.”

“What does that matter? It’s not like I’m eager to marry.”

“One of us has to,” Ephorah said. “Our father needs heirs.”

“Fine. When you’re older, ask Father to arrange a marriage for you.”

“I plan to.”

“Then there’s no problem, is there?”

Ephorah twisted the hem of her dress in her hands. “I’m still worried,” she said. “The slavers keep coming closer and closer. They’re bound to take someone again, and the next person might not come back. Midian doesn’t feel safe anymore.”

“Nowhere is fully safe,” Tzipporah said.

“The Promised Land is. Supposedly.”

“It wasn’t promised to _us_, though. Midian is our home. We have to make the best of it.”

Ephorah had no reply to that. Tzipporah sat back down next to her and put an arm over her shoulders. Ephorah leaned into her touch.

_Midian doesn’t feel safe anymore. _

There was truth to that. They’d always been vulnerable, as a small desert tribe. Compared to Egypt, they were helpless. But Tzipporah hadn’t understood the word “vulnerable” until she had found her hands bound to the saddle of a slaver’s camel. She had never known what it was to be helpless until she’d been dragged to a marketplace, where a pair of smirking men inspected her and bought her with a handful of coins.

The slavers might come back, she knew. They might take someone else. But where else could her tribe go?

_This is my home. _

Tzipporah watched her sister’s hard, solemn eyes scanning the horizon for wolves.

_This is my family. I swear upon God’s name, I will never let anyone take me away from them again._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> On the Dreamworks Prince of Egypt Wiki, the names of Tzipporah's sisters are given as Ephorah, Ajolidoforah , and Jethrodiadah. I found the latter two names hard to remember, and none of them are named in the Torah, so I renamed the two younger sisters. Yiska is a Hebrew name that I picked it because I liked the way it sounded. Keturah is the name of one of Abraham's wives, which I picked because her descendants became the founders of Midian.  
Unprocessed sheep wool really does have an oily texture. This is due to a naturally-occurring waxy substance called lanolin.  
Tzipporah's fist-over-heart gesture when swearing an oath is modeled on the practice of rapping a fist on your chest during a certain part of Yom Kippur services.


	4. Chapter 4

The Egyptians did not keep track of which slaves showed up to work. They did not need to. Anyone who was physically able to work but stayed behind in Goshen quickly became a target for the other slaves. They were all in this together, the thinking went, and that meant suffering and working alongside each other. So as soon as Miriam was able to walk without reopening her wounds, she left the house she shared with Aaron and returned to the worksites. Aaron stayed close beside her, helping when she stumbled.

When they reached the massive half-built statues, they were met with a surprise. A palace scribe stood to the side of the river of slaves. Miriam could hear his voice, though not well enough to make out what he was saying.

“Probably some new rule or mass punishment for something,” Aaron muttered.

“It’s odd that Pharaoh would send a scribe all the way out here,” Miriam said. Normally, new rules and instructions were relayed by the guards.

They took their place in the long line, moving towards whatever task awaited them that day. Aaron was good with his hands and often permitted to do delicate carving work. Miriam should have been exempt from hard labor as a woman, but she’d gained a reputation for disobedience. Disobedient slaves had to be punished. The kinder guards let her and Aaron work on the same sites together, though Aaron said they were just being practical. They knew he would hold Miriam back, should she try to start trouble.

The scribe’s announcement was nearly audible now. Miriam caught the words _Prince Moses_. Aaron must have heard it too, because he looked at her and shook his head, as if to say, _Don’t get your hopes up_.

_Too late_, Miriam wanted to say back. Her hopes were never down.

A few steps closer, and finally, they could hear what the scribe was saying: “Pharaoh has reason to believe that some time ago, a slave or slaves spoke to Prince Moses. Any slaves who did so, or who know anything about the conversation, are ordered to report to the nearest guard. Anyone who provides valuable information will be escorted to the palace and rewarded. You need not fear punishment for speaking out.”

Miriam felt Aaron’s hand settle on her shoulder. “Don’t do it,” he said. “When Pharaoh says ‘rewarded,’ he means he’ll kill you quickly.”

They moved past the scribe. His voice faded into the general murmurs and whispers of the slaves.

“This could be our chance, Aaron,” Miriam said. She kept her voice low and controlled. “When will either of us ever have an opportunity to speak to Pharaoh again?”

“In case you’ve forgotten, our mother spoke to Pharaoh once, and look at all the good _that_ did,” Aaron said.

Miriam felt a pain in her stomach, as though she had been punched. Her mother, Yocheved, had been a midwife deeply admired for her skill and knowledge. So admired, that word of her reached Pharaoh. He summoned her and ordered her to kill any male children she helped deliver, telling the mothers their children had been stillborn. Yocheved had lied to his face, pretending to agree. When a year passed and Pharaoh noticed how many male children still lived, he summoned her again. Again, Yocheved lied. She said that Hebrew women were strong, and all had already given birth by the time she arrived to help.

She was right about one thing: Hebrew women were strong. Miriam had proudly taken up her mother’s job after Yocheved’s death and seen that strength firsthand. But in the end, Yocheved’s resistance bought them only a little time. Then Pharaoh ordered the massacre.

“I have to try,” Miriam said. “I might at least learn what happened to Moses.”

Rumor said that he had left Egypt. She had not seen him since the day he killed the guard. The royal family had become subdued: no proclamations, no grand celebrations, no brothers driving their chariots through the streets. But perhaps they knew where Moses had gone, and why.

Aaron shook his head forcefully. “No. I mean it, Miriam. They kept his heritage secret for a reason. They won’t be happy to learn that a slave told him the truth. This is just a trick to lure you out.”

They were moving closer to the front of the line. Miriam recognized the guards directing people. They were not among the kinder ones.

Aaron, noticing the same thing, spoke more rapidly. “Miriam, please, I’m begging you not to do it. But if you do decide to speak to him, let me go with you. I can speak for you, stop you from saying something that would get us both killed.”

Dust rose up between them with every step. The sand here had been ground down to a fine powder by the never-ending press of slaves.

“Aaron,” said Miriam. “Don’t ask me to make a promise I can’t keep. If this is a chance to free you –to free everyone we know –how can I stand by and not act?”

“Then let me go with you,” said Aaron. They were mere paces from the guards. Soon, they would be separated.

“No matter what Pharaoh does to me, someone has to keep hope alive," she said. "I need you to do that for me. People listen to you.”

“No they don’t. They only ever listen to me because they listened to our father,” said Aaron.

They reached the guards. One, slightly taller than the other, glanced at Miriam and gestured for her to go towards the mud pit. The other indicated for Aaron to go towards the statues.

“Go,” said Miriam.

Aaron hesitated. The pain and fear in his eyes was enough to break Miriam’s heart. But her heart had been broken many times before.

The taller guard barked an order at her brother. The other’s hand drifted to his whip. Miriam stepped forward, letting her voice rise above the swirling dust.

“I am the slave who spoke to Prince Moses. Pharaoh will want to speak to me,” she said.

Both guards stared at her, ignoring Aaron. The shorter guard’s hand dropped from his whip.

“The prince spoke to you?” he repeated. He frowned at her, as though the force of his glare would make her step back and say that she didn’t want to talk to Pharaoh after all.

“Yes,” she said. “So follow your orders and take me to the palace.” Her heart pounded so forcefully she felt blood pulsing in her head. The whip marks on her back throbbed.

“Sir, please, don’t listen to her,” Aaron began, but the guard who had reached for his whip snapped, “Get on your way, slave.”

Aaron stood there, and for a moment, he looked as he had the day Moses was sent down the Nile: small, helpless, unable to understand what was happening.

The taller guard looked at his companion.

“I’ll take her. You stay here,” said the shorter guard. He took hold of Miriam’s arm. She tensed reflexively, but did not resist as he marched her away from the other slaves, walking in the direction of the palace.

_He doesn’t need to act like he’s dragging me there_, Miriam thought. But the guards only knew one way to treat slaves.

She looked back over her shoulder for one last glimpse of Aaron. He was speaking to the guard, gesturing towards her, but whatever he was saying, the guard had no interest in it. A whip rose. Miriam nearly turned back, opened her mouth to call out –but Aaron backed away, rejoining the other slaves. Safe. For now.

Miriam fixed her eyes on the path ahead, waiting for her frantic heartbeat to slow.

_We will live to see freedom_, she reminded herself. _I know that Moses will save us. I know because…_ But she couldn’t finish that sentence, even inside the privacy of her own mind, where only God could hear her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The story about Yocheved speaking to Pharaoh is based on midrash (rabbinic commentary). Exodus (Shemot, in Hebrew) 1:15-1:20 says that Pharaoh told two midwives, Shifra and Puah, to kill the Hebrew male infants, but they defied him. Some rabbis have suggested that these two midwives were actually Yocheved and Miriam. In Prince of Egypt canon, Miriam would have been too young to help with midwifery, but I liked the idea of Yocheved resisting Pharaoh’s tyranny even before the birth of Moses.


	5. Chapter 5

As far as Tzipporah could tell, Moses was useless at pretty much everything. Her father said that he needed time to adjust. Sooner or later, his true strengths would reveal themselves. Her father, however, had not watched the camel headbutt Moses into the water trough. Repeatedly.

The only thing she trusted him to do unsupervised was gather firewood, so that had become his main job. It was simple, and as an added benefit, it gave him an excuse to be by himself. Though Moses never outright asked to be left alone, he became quieter and more nervous the more time he spent surrounded by the Midianites. Everything was new for him: the food, the work, the language. (Everyone knew Egyptian, since they couldn’t very well trade with the Egyptians otherwise, but among themselves they spoke their own language).

However, the last time Moses had gone to collect firewood, he had come back limping from a scorpion sting. So today, Tzipporah and Yiska went with him. Tzipporah led the way.

“There are so few trees out here,” Moses remarked. They were three miles from the camp and still searching for firewood.

“Most of the wood we used in Egypt came from far away. I never thought about the people who had to collect it themselves,” he continued.

“If we can’t find wood, we’ll collect dried sheep dung. It burns just as well,” Tzipporah told him.

Moses looked deeply uncomfortable at the idea. He flustered so easily.

She’d expected to still hate him, or at least resent him. Tzipporah had never been one to let go of a grudge quickly. But Moses really did seem to have had a change of heart. He was no longer the palace brat who had taunted her. Right now, with his hair growing out loose and messy, he looked more like his sister than like a prince.

Tzipporah had realized the identity of the woman who had given her water after hearing Moses’s story. Strange, to think how two siblings had saved her on the same night. She wouldn’t have made it out of the palace without Moses. She wouldn’t have made it across the desert without Miriam’s water.

“I heard that in Egypt, they have fancy wood that smells nice when you burn it,” Yiska said. “Did you have that when you were a prince?”

Yiska had her scarf fastened tightly over her face, as usual. Only her curious eyes were visible. For some reason, heavy dust left Yiska gasping for breath. Out in the desert, dust was inescapable. She managed her condition by keeping her nose and mouth covered.

“Yes. It’s called incense,” Moses said. “We often had it lit in the temples and in the palace.”

Tzipporah shaded her eyes and scanned the horizon. Heat waves distorted her view, but she thought she could see a tree in the far distance.

“Do you miss Egypt?” Yiska asked.

Tzipporah looked back at Moses. He met her gaze, and immediately looked away.

“I miss some things. Mostly, I miss my brother.”

Part of Tzipporah, the part that preached forgiveness and kindness and sounded a lot like her father, said she should be understanding. Moses had lost everything he had ever known. The other part, which vividly recalled the terror of being kidnapped, said that Moses needed to realize the cost of the empire he remembered so fondly. This part spoke louder.

“What about your other siblings?” she asked.

He blinked at her like a startled bird. “Other siblings…?”

“Miriam and Aaron. The two you met at the well that night.”

“Yes. Them.” He held her gaze this time. “It’s still hard for me to think of them as my siblings. I only met them once. Before that, I didn’t know they existed. Ramses was my brother for my whole life.”

They had slowed as they spoke. Tzipporah considered picking up the pace and letting the conversation die. But they still had a long way to go before reaching the tree. And then there was the journey back. They could not avoid speaking for that whole time. She decided to be blunt.

“Miriam risked her life to tell you the truth. She and Aaron are still slaves. Have you even thought about going back to free them?”

Yiska knew enough to recognize the shift in her sister’s tone. She darted ahead, swift as a fish in water.

“I have,” Moses admitted softly.

This was not the answer Tzipporah had expected. She waited for the rest of his explanation.

“I’ve thought about it, but now that I know what my father- what Pharaoh- did to the children… I don’t know what he would do to them. What if he blames them for telling me the truth?”

_He’s right. A man who would order the slaughter of infants wouldn’t hesitate to kill those he blames for taking away his son. _

“You’re a prince, or you were,” she said. “Couldn’t you protect them, if you went back?”

“I don’t know,” Moses said. He spoke as though all hope had been wrung painfully out of him. “I don’t know if they’d still consider me a prince, after killing that man. Even if they did, and even if I could free Miriam and Aaron, what then? I can’t live as I used to. If we left, where would we go? Do you really think we would be safe here?”

“No,” she said. Her voice was as quiet as his. “If Pharaoh knew about you, you wouldn’t be.”

For the most part, they were too far away for the Egyptians to bother with. Slavers came through every now and then to kidnap people and sell them to nobles, who delighted in having “exotic” slaves. But whatever thin protection they had would never hold if Pharaoh learned that Moses was here.

“I’m sorry,” she said. It was the first time she had ever apologized to him. “I should have known better than to ask.”

“I should have known better about a lot of things,” Moses replied.

She couldn’t argue with that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I saw a headcanon somewhere that Tzipporah’s youngest sister wears a scarf over her face because she has asthma. This headcanon isn’t relevant to the story, but I like it and decided to include it.


	6. Chapter 6

Miriam knew the path to the palace well. Many nights, when troubled by sleeplessness, she had left her home and walked there, hoping for a glimpse of Moses. She got one just often enough to keep coming back. 

The guard, of course, did not know this. He pulled her along as though expecting her to try and escape at any moment. The road was not long, but Miriam’s injuries had left her weak, and she fell several times. Each time, the guard impatiently jerked her back up and continued.

They reached the steps of the palace and began to climb. The stone under Miriam’s feet felt smooth and cool, completely different from the hot, gritty sand she was used to walking on. At the top of the steps, another guard waited. The one who had dragged her from the building site released her. The two conversed quickly and quietly, glancing at her only once. Then the palace guard stepped through the doorway, leaving them outside.

“Wait here until you’re summoned,” the remaining guard told her.

Miriam nodded. She ran through speeches in her head, wondering what she could say to Pharaoh. What would a man like him listen to? Not threats, not from a slave. But by all accounts, he loved Moses as his own son. Surely she could appeal to that.

The palace guard returned and beckoned her inside. She walked forward, her heart racing but her head held high. She stepped through the doorway.

Inside, the light reflected dim and bluish from the pale stone walls. They passed servants dressed in clothes better than anything she had ever worn, and courtiers whose gaudy jewels made her stare. She was suddenly intensely aware of her dress, the same dull red one she always wore. The back was newly patched where the whip had torn through it. Under her dress, she felt sweat turning the dust that clung to her into muddy gray rivulets. More dust caked her bare feet, which left smudges on the clean white floor. 

_ I will not be shamed, _ she thought, even as a passing courtier curled his lip in distaste.

_ I am a daughter of the tribe of Levi and sister to Moses, who God has chosen to deliver us. Pharaoh will listen to me. _

They reached what Miriam assumed to be the throne room, based on the grand, imposing doors. The guard pushed these doors open and announced their presence. 

The throne room loomed larger than any of the other rooms they had passed. A line of columns ran down one side, leaving open spaces through which to view the massive statue of Pharaoh. On the room’s far side, Pharaoh and his family sat on their elegant thrones. There was the Queen, her hair beautifully styled; there was Rameses, Pharaoh’s heir. And in between them, Pharaoh himself. 

Miriam bowed her head, not out of respect, but to prevent Pharaoh from seeing her face. She could not hide the hatred boiling up inside her.

_ He ordered our children killed. It’s because of him that Moses was taken from us. _

“You may go,” Pharaoh said to the guard. Miriam heard the guard’s footsteps, then the door closing.

_ You don’t want anyone else to know the truth about Moses, do you? _

“So,” said Pharaoh. He sounded older than she had imagined he would. Tired, almost.

“You say you spoke to Prince Moses.”

“Yes,” said Miriam. She looked up, not directly at his face, but nearer. 

“I am Miriam bat Amram v’Yocheved. Moses is my brother.”

At that, Rameses leaned forward and opened his mouth, but Pharaoh silenced him with an upraised hand.

“Can you prove it?” Pharaoh asked.

Miriam shifted her gaze to the Queen. She, like Rameses, leaned forward, but she did not share Rameses’ look of angry disbelief. She studied Miriam’s face, her brow furrowed, her eyes searching.

_ She’s looking for the family resemblance. She may have raised Moses, but she will never share that with him. _

Miriam said, “I was there the day my mother put Moses into a basket and sent him down the Nile. I followed the basket and saw the Queen find it.”

She did not want to mention the lullaby. It was too precious, too close to her heart, to share with them.

“You claim you made it all the way to the palace, to the Queen’s personal pool, and yet no guards stopped you?” Pharaoh asked.

“Most of the guards were away from the palace that day. They were carrying out the murder of the Hebrew children.” 

Had Aaron been there, this would have been the point at which he pulled her back. Or, more likely, he would have recognized the spark in her eyes and the lift of her chin and pulled her back before she had a chance to speak. But Aaron wasn’t there. She stood before Pharaoh alone.

She risked a glance at Pharaoh’s face. It was as impassive as the statue carved in his likeness. He might have been ignoring her statement or planning her execution. She would never have known which until it was too late.

For the first time, the Queen spoke.

“What did you say to Moses, when you spoke to him?” she asked.

“I told him the truth. I told him he was a Hebrew, and my brother.”

“And he  _ believed _ you?” Rameses interjected. If Pharaoh sounded older than he was, Rameses sounded younger. He must have been near Aaron’s age, yet he sounded like a petulant child.

“Not at first,” Miriam said. “But I convinced him.” She directed her answer at the Queen, the only one who seemed to be truly listening to her.

“Where did this conversation occur? My sons rarely speak to slaves,” said Pharaoh. 

“It was in Goshen.” She realized, belatedly, that she would have to edit her story to keep the escaping Midian woman out of it. Pharaoh already had a dozen reasons to order her death. There was no need to add “aided a fugitive” to her list of crimes.

“I don’t know why Moses was there. I didn’t think to ask. But he and Ramses sometimes wander far from the palace.” This part, at least, was true, though the two always traveled by chariot, not on foot.

“What happened after you persuaded my son that he was a Hebrew?” Pharaoh asked. He spoke with a hardness that hadn’t been there before.

“Nothing. He left.” The change in Pharaoh’s voice brought out a change in her own. She spoke louder, letting recklessness guide her tongue.

“Are you not ashamed, Pharaoh, to know that you have enslaved the family of the son you claim to love? I came here not to be questioned by you, but to demand our freedom.” 

The magnificent room took her words and carried them to the far corners. The sentence fractured into disjointed echoes.  _ Pharaoh _ and  _ freedom  _ reverberated from the walls.

Pharaoh did not speak until the echoes faded. When he did, the hard edge had vanished. He sounded almost friendly.

“If what you say is true, then your family was spared the grief of losing a son all those years ago. Do you have any brothers besides Prince Moses?”

The breath in her lungs froze. 

_ Not Aaron. I won’t let you take Aaron too. _

“No,” Miriam said. Surely Pharaoh did not keep track of the families of individual slaves. He couldn’t know about Aaron. But Amram had been a respected leader. Yocheved had defied Pharaoh’s orders. If the Egyptians kept track of anyone’s family, it would be hers.

The corners of Pharaoh’s mouth curled into a stony smile.

“I see. That is fortunate for you. If you had a brother, I might have ordered him killed as punishment for what you just said.”

The speech Miriam had planned died in her throat. It choked her, forcing her to struggle for each shallow breath. She would gladly have given her own life in pursuit of freedom, but she could not risk Aaron’s.

“On the other hand,” Pharaoh continued. “If you know where Prince Moses has gone, I might overlook your insolence.”

_ He doesn’t know either. I came here for nothing. _

“I don’t know anything, sire,” she said. The title slipped out before she could stop it. “I haven’t seen Moses since the day he killed the guard.”

“I see.” A pause from Pharaoh. “Does anyone else know of Moses’s origins?”

“No, sire.”

Pharaoh leaned forward. “You realize that I cannot allow you to return and tell the other slaves that Prince Moses is missing, much less that he was born of Hebrews.”

The stone under Miriam’s feet gleamed white as old bones. 

“Yes, sire,” she said.

_ I’ll live to see freedom. He promised it. _ But it was one thing to believe a promise at night, in the comfort of her own home, and another to believe it under the glare of Pharaoh.

“Then you understand that I have only two choices.”

She looked up.  _ Two? _ Aaron’s voice in her head said,  _ Death and slow death. _

“I can have you executed,” Pharaoh said. “Or I can give you your freedom.”

Miriam thought she had misheard. Then she saw her own shock reflected in the faces of the Queen and Rameses. She swallowed, tried to speak, but Pharaoh continued before she could force out a single word.

“If you choose freedom, you will be exiled. I will have a guard take you beyond the borders of Egypt. Once there, you are free to live your life. If you ever return to Egypt, you will be executed.”

Once, a slave carrying heavy lumber had accidentally struck Miriam’s head. She had crumpled to the ground, too hurt and disoriented even to crawl away. She had heard a rushing sound, as though her ears were filling with water. Her vision went black, and returned only slowly. 

Hearing Pharaoh’s offer felt like that.

_ Freedom at the price of exile. I would never see Aaron again. _

“Well?” said Pharaoh.

She had wanted freedom, had come here intending to demand it. But she had wanted freedom for everyone. Compared to the vision in her head, this was a cruel joke. Could this really be what God had intended for her?

_ Moses is out there. If I can find him, he can free everyone else. I can’t find him and persuade him if I die here. _

“I choose freedom,” she said. Her lips felt numb. She could hardly believe the words as she spoke them.

“I thought you would,” Pharaoh said. He rose from his throne.

“There are a few spare rooms in the palace. I will have a servant escort you to one. You may spend the night and depart tomorrow morning.”

_ And you’ll have someone watching the door, no doubt, to ensure I don’t try to escape.  _

Pharaoh did not seem to expect a response, and she did not offer one. He strode to the door and opened it to speak to the guard waiting outside. The Queen and Rameses stood as well. The Queen followed her husband, but Rameses made his way to Miriam. She stood her ground as he approached. She feared Pharaoh. She could not deny that now. She refused to fear his son.

Rameses stopped mere inches away from her.

“My father is being lenient towards you,” he said. “I won’t forgive you for taking my brother away from me.”

“I’ve never forgiven your family for taking  _ my _ brother away from me,” Miriam replied. She spoke softly, but Rameses flinched as though she had shouted. She wondered if they were both thinking the same thing:  _ If Moses is your brother and mine, what are we to each other? _

Rameses scowled and shoved past her. She closed her eyes and took a deep, slow breath.

_ I’m free, _ she thought. She repeated the words, trying to believe them.  _ I’m free. _

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Miriam’s self-identification (“Miriam bat Amram v’Yocheved,” in English, “Miriam, daughter of Amram and Yocheved”) follows contemporary Jewish naming conventions. It’s unlikely that a Hebrew speaker in this time period would actually refer to herself this way; most people in the Torah are identified by their tribe or their father’s name, rarely including their mother’s. Since Yocheved is an important part of Miriam’s life and Prince of Egypt is only partially historically accurate, I wrote her name according to modern conventions.


	7. Chapter 7

Miriam half-dozed in the room she had been sent to, wrapped in strange dreams. She dreamed of climbing out of a deep well, her muscles aching with effort. Something blue flashed above her. A hand reached down, and she grabbed it. Looking up, she saw the Midian woman.

A jolt of pain pulled her from the dream. Even lying on her side, the wounds on her back burned like rods of hot metal. The injuries couldn’t be infected, she told herself, because they never became infected. It was one of many small blessings that God bestowed on her, though Aaron called it dumb luck.

_Aaron._ He would not know what had happened. He would know only that she had gone to the palace and never returned.

_He’ll assume the worst. And I can’t send a messenger from here, because then Pharaoh would find out about him. Or does Pharaoh already know? What if he plans to exile me and then kill Aaron? _

Lost in the pain of her back and the turmoil of her thoughts, she did not immediately register the sound of someone entering the room. Her body reacted before her mind did. She found herself standing with her back to the wall before she understood why she had gotten up. The room was dim, but the intruder had brought a lamp, and in the light it cast, Miriam saw a face she recognized.

_What is the Queen doing here?_

“I apologize if I startled you,” said the Queen. She set the lamp on the ground. “I want to talk.”

It was not a question or an order, so Miriam remained silent. She watched warily as the Queen removed a bracelet from her wrist and held it out. After a moment, when it became clear that the Queen was in fact offering the bracelet to her, Miriam took it. The ornament was heavy, dull gold, set with turquoise stones. Surely not the most valuable thing the royal family owned, but more valuable than anything she had ever been allowed to handle.

“It will be difficult for you to start over in a strange land. You can trade that for whatever you need,” said the Queen. She spoke haltingly, placing each word with care.

Miriam slipped the bracelet onto her wrist. It was slightly too large for her.

“Thank you,” she said. It seemed a safe thing to say.

“I want you to know that I would have told Moses, when he was ready,” the Queen said. “I knew we couldn’t keep it a secret forever. I even gave him a Hebrew name. Moses, because he was drawn from the waters of the Nile.”

The Queen had conjugated the word wrong, Miriam noted. The Hebrew verb that formed Moses’s name meant _to draw out_, not to be drawn from. Still, the fact that she had learned even a single word of their language meant something.

“Did Pharaoh know where Moses came from?” Miriam asked.

“We never talked about it, but he knew I didn’t give birth to Moses. And considering the timing…” The Queen’s voice trailed off, then picked up again.

“I believe he adopted Moses because he wanted to make up for what he did to the other infants.” The Queen looked at her searchingly. She was taller than Miriam, yet she gave the impression of looking up at her.

Miriam understood that the Queen wanted her forgiveness. Forgiveness for taking Moses away, for the deaths of the Hebrew boys, for the years of slavery. But Miriam could not give it.

“We had another child before Rameses. A daughter. But she died before her first year. Rameses was a blessing, and then to have another child after him was an even greater blessing,” the Queen said. Again, that searching, hungry look. Who could have imagined that a Queen would stand before a slave and ask for absolution?

“I am grateful for the kindness with which you treated my brother,” said Miriam. “But I cannot forgive everything that your people did to mine.”

The flame in the lamp flickered.

“Yes. I suppose I cannot expect that from you,” said the Queen, almost too quietly to hear. The Queen looked away, running a hand absentmindedly over her hair.

“Moses was deeply hurt when he learned the truth. He wouldn’t tell me much, but I realized a slave must have spoken to him. I told my husband what I suspected. I wouldn’t have done it if Moses hadn’t gone missing. I thought you might know where Moses had gone, and I thought I could soften any punishment Seti gave you. He listens to me.”

“But you knew he _would_ punish me,” Miriam said.

“Not for certain.” The Queen’s voice trembled. Every time before that Miriam had seen the Queen, she had been pure poise and elegance, regal as the cats that sunned themselves on temple steps. Now, that regal mask had cracked.

“I believe he does feel some sympathy for you both, as Moses’s other siblings,” The Queen continued. “I thought perhaps that would restrain him.”

The sick, dizzy feeling from the throne room returned. Miriam’s mouth felt dry, and it was with great difficulty that she forced her tongue to form words.

“What do you mean ‘both’? Does he know-”

“About Aaron? Yes. Not that he knew you were related to Moses. We didn’t know that until today. He only knew about you and your brother. You have a reputation with the guards.”

“What is he going to do to Aaron?” She wanted to sound brave, but fear strangled her voice, making it thin and weak.

“Nothing. From what the guards say, you’re the loose thread that needs cutting. He thinks with you gone, Aaron won’t be a problem.”

Relief made Miriam’s whole body go limp. She leaned one hand against the wall to steady herself. Perhaps she could get a message to Aaron after all.

“Could you tell him what happened to me?” she asked.

“My husband does not want word of this getting out,” the Queen said, very gently. “If the other slaves learned that one of them had been given freedom, it might cause trouble.”

“He’ll worry.” But she knew the Queen was right. Aaron could keep a secret, but Pharaoh didn’t know that. Pharaoh had ordered the deaths of children. He would order Aaron silenced at the slightest provocation. Miriam had no doubt of that.

“I’m sorry,” said the Queen. “I can’t.”

Miriam had seen bereaved mothers before. The women who buried the broken bodies of their sons, worked to death under the Egyptain sun. The women so thin from years of hunger that they couldn’t produce milk, and their infants starved at their breast. Worst of all, the weeping women collapsed in the streets after Pharaoh’s massacre.

To Miriam, the Queen would always look like a woman who had taken a child. At that moment, she also looked like a woman who had lost a child.

“I understand,” she said. There was little she was able -or willing, for that matter- to offer a Queen. But she could offer the one thing they both loved.

“I’ll look for Moses while I’m in exile. God has protected him. I’m sure of it.”

The Queen wiped her eyes. “Thank you,” she said. Unshed tears roughened her voice. She took a deep breath, and her expression became once more composed. “May your God protect you.”

Miriam could not quite bring herself to speak of the Egyptain deities, though she knew all their names and attributes from years spent working on their temples. Instead, she said, “I have my freedom because of you. I thank you for that.”

The Queen inclined her head, then picked up the lamp. Miriam wasn’t sure whether the prayer of an Egyptian counted in God’s eyes. But as the Queen left the room, her words settled near Miriam’s heart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There are many proposed etymologies for Moses's name. The one given in Exodus 2:10 -that it is derived from the Hebrew verb "meshitihu" - is the one I referenced here.


	8. Chapter 8

A single guard accompanied Miriam away from the palace. The guard rode a camel, while she was given a donkey. The guard did not speak, and Miriam did not attempt to make conversation. They passed Goshen without going through it. Miriam had expected to feel loss at being unable to say goodbye to her ramshackle city. Instead, she felt relief at not having to face Aaron. She would not have been able to leave, had she seen him one last time.

The Nile faded into the distance, and a vast expanse of sand stretched before them. That sand was all Miriam saw, ahead of her, behind her, and to every side, for the rest of the journey.

The first few days, she tried to think of names for the donkey, constructing and discarding them one by one, until with something like vengeance, she settled on Rameses.

The next few weeks, she imagined conversations with Moses, preparing for when she saw him again. She would tell him about their mother, and about their father, and about all the things she and Aaron had gotten up to as children.

Once or twice, she thought about the Midian woman, wondering what had become of her.

On the last day with the guard, though she did not know that it was the last day, she prayed. She silently recited every prayer she knew: the ones for food, the ones for weddings, the one said before sleep. The wind whipped sand into her face, and the sun reflecting on the sand burned her eyes, and the sand that worked its way into her clothes and under her bandages made her wounds sting anew. They had not passed a source of water in days, and her canteen was dangerously low.

She was staring at the spot between her donkey’s ears and thinking of nothing when the guard stopped.

“This is it,” he said. “We’ve passed the borders of Egypt.”

To Miriam’s eyes, nothing distinguished this patch of sand from all the desert they had already traveled through.

“How much farther to Midian?” she asked. She did not know where Midian was, or if they were even near it, but it was the only name of a place outside Egypt that she knew. Well, other than the Promised Land, but only God could lead her there.

The guard shrugged.

“A few days, maybe.”

Miriam unhooked her canteen from the donkey’s saddle and weighed it in her hand. Not enough.

“I don’t have enough water for a few more days,” she said.

The guard shrugged again. Three canteens of water dangled from his camel’s saddle.

“Pharaoh didn’t tell me to give you water. You can kill the donkey and drink its blood instead.”

She tried to guess from his expression whether he knew that drinking blood was taboo for Hebrews. From the small, sly smirk he wore, it seemed he did.

He wheeled the camel around.

“Goodbye, slave. I don’t know what you did to be exiled, but better you than me.” And with that, he was gone.

“I’m free,” Miriam said. Her voice rasped, so she cleared her throat and tried again.

“I’m free. I’m not a slave any longer.”

As though her freedom would save her from the desert.

Rameses the donkey continued in the same direction he had been going. She let him, reasoning that if God would not guide her directly, perhaps He would at least guide her mount.

“I’m not dying out here,” she whispered. She touched the bracelet the queen had given her. “I won’t.”

The next two days passed in a haze. She tried to ration the water for herself, but the donkey made such pitiful noises that she gave him the last few mouthfuls. Her tongue felt swollen and her head ached. Her back burned, then the burning spread to the rest of her body, until everything hurt. Twice, she fell off the donkey, and was able to crawl back into the saddle only because the patient animal stopped and waited for her. After the second fall, she ripped a fraying strip from her dress and used it to tie her hands around the donkey’s neck. This forced her to lay with her face in the animal’s bristly mane, but at that point, she was too exhausted to care. She closed her eyes and waited.

She must have drifted into unconsciousness at some point, because when she next lifted her head and opened her eyes, the sun hung low on the horizon. Enough light still spilled over the land to illuminate distant trees. She held her breath, waiting to see if they would reveal themselves to be nothing more than a mirage. But no, there were shadows beneath the trees, and tents tucked into those shadows. No mirage looked like that.

The donkey picked up his pace, and Miriam saw what he was heading towards. In between her and the tents, there was a water trough.

_Water._

She fumbled at the knots around her wrists. She had tied them loosely, but the fabric had stretched and tightened. Her hands shook, and the jostling from the donkey did not help. Finally, she freed herself and sat up. That was a mistake.

Dizziness overcame her and she felt herself falling again. She grasped weakly for Rameses’ mane, but the short, stiff hairs ran through her fingers like water. She hit the ground on her back. Pain flared, as searing as though she had been struck with the lash again. She would have cried, but there was not enough water left in her body for tears. Dry, shallow gasps tore themselves from her throat. Darkness crept in at the edges of her vision. She wanted nothing more than to let it consume her.

_No._ Miriam clenched her fist. _I’m not dying here. _

She lacked the strength to stand. All she could do was lie on the earth and fight to stay conscious.

She heard footsteps. A hand touched her shoulder. Someone leaned over her, and she heard words she understood, but their meaning fled her mind before she could respond.

_Someone is here, _she thought. Then the darkness washed over her.


	9. Chapter 9

Tzipporah thought about Moses as she led the sheep back from grazing at the end of the day. Shepherding might be a good job for him. It was a lot of standing around, watching for predators and bandits. Neither attacked frequently. He’d have a hard time whenever a sheep got itself stuck somewhere and had to be hauled out, but a little physical labor would do him good. Hobab or another of the more experienced shepherds would be glad to help him. Yes, she decided, she would suggest shepherding to him when he got back from gathering firewood.

She paused on the side of a dune. She knew the desert well. Nothing escaped her notice, certainly not something as obvious as hoofprints.

_Not narrow enough for a sheep. Not wide enough for a camel. Too small for a horse. Has to be a donkey._

No one in her tribe owned a donkey.

Tzipporah adjusted her grip on her staff. A donkey would be an odd choice of mount for a bandit, but one could never be too suspicious. She climbed to the top of the dune, the sheep milling around her. The flock didn’t seem worried, and their instincts for danger were generally good. Still, she wasn’t about to place all her faith in sheep.

From the top of the dune, she could see the tents of the camp. Normally, those were the first things she noticed. Today she noticed something new. Two new things, actually. A donkey was drinking from the trough. In between the dunes and the trough, a person lay on the ground.

Tzipporah’s suspicions were forgotten in an instant. She ran the rest of the way down the dune. The sheep, with many complaining bleats, trotted ahead of her. The person –a woman, she saw now –lay face-up, breathing shallowly. Tzipporah crouched beside her and touched her shoulder.

“Can you understand me? Are you hurt?” she asked.

The woman’s eyes flickered open and closed again.

Tzipporah placed her palm on the woman’s forehead. Her skin felt hot and dry. Blood encrusted her cracked lips. She looked, Tzipporah noted, like a Hebrew. Which meant she was a runaway slave.

_No point worrying about that yet._

Tzipporah slid one hand under the Hebrew woman’s legs, the other under her back, intending to lift her. At her touch, the woman’s eyes flew open again and she gave a pained moan.

“I’m sorry,” Tzipporah said. “I have get you into water to cool you down as quickly as possible. Otherwise, you’ll die of the heat.”

Even with night approaching, the air was warm. Dangerously warm, for a person who had been exposed to the desert’s elements for God knew how long.

Tzipporah picked her up. Her small body went rigid from fear or pain.

_Good thing I have all that practice carrying lost sheep_, she thought, as she carried the woman towards the water trough.

The sheep had already crowded in to drink, leaving space for the donkey. They all moved aside to let her pass. Tzipporah stepped over the lip of the trough and into it. The water wasn’t exactly clean, but it would do.

She lowered the Hebrew woman into it, careful to keep her head above the water. This turned out to be wise. As soon as she felt the water, the woman came alert and began to struggle. She was too weak to put up much of a fight, but she managed to latch on to Tzipporah’s arm with her right hand.

“It’s all right, I’ve got you. I’m not about to save your life just to drown you,” Tzipporah said.

The woman went still. She was awake, but appeared disoriented. Her gaze flickered in every direction. She maintained her grip on Tzipporah’s arm, though her fingers loosened slightly.

Tzipporah positioned her so that she could lean back against the side of the trough. The water was too shallow to drown in, unless the woman really wanted to make an effort. Then, very slowly, she let go and backed away. The Hebrew woman released her arm.

“There’s a well. I’m going to get you water. You don’t want to drink the same thing the sheep are drinking,” Tzipporah said to her. The sheep had continued drinking, unfazed by the strange goings-on of humans. The lead ewe eyed Tzipporah with benign puzzlement.

“Yes, I know, humans keep going into your water. Deal with it,” Tzipporah muttered as she stepped out of the trough.

She hauled a bucket up out of the well and returned to the woman with it. The woman dipped her cupped hands into the water and drank deeply. Tzipporah observed the wet strands of hair clinging to her forehead and resisted the urge to brush them away.

_There’s something familiar about her face_, Tzipporah thought.

As though sensing this thought, the woman looked up at her.

“Thank you,” she said. Her voice sounded familiar too. She turned her head slowly from side to side and asked, “Is this Midian?”

“Yes,” said Tzipporah. She hated to ask, but now that the woman was talking, there were questions that needed answering.

“No one here will turn you in, but I need to know: is anyone after you? Did you escape from Egypt?”

Tzipporah had mentally prepared herself to alert her father and flee with whatever she could carry, so she was surprised when the woman shook her head.

“No. I didn’t escape. I was freed.”

“Freed?” Tzipporah repeated. She took in the woman’s ragged dress and the beleaguered donkey. The woman wore a dull gold bracelet on her wrist, but otherwise, appeared to have nothing of value.

_That’s what the Egyptians call giving someone freedom, is it?_

“My name is Miriam,” said the woman.

“I’m Tzipporah,” Tzipporah said, but she spoke automatically. At the name “Miriam,” her mind had begun racing, putting pieces together.

_The slave Moses spoke to, the one who gave me water. Moses said her name was Miriam. Miriam, his sister._

Tzipporah stopped that line of thought before it could go any farther. There was one more pressing thing to deal with.

“Are you injured?” she asked.

Miriam nodded. “My back,” she said simply. Tzipporah could see that the back of her dress had been patched, but in the lighting, could not make out anything more than that.

“I’ll take you to my father. He can take care of you,” Tzipporah said. Jethro acted as physician to the tribe, in addition to his other roles of priest, leader, and advice-giver.

Miriam tried to stand, but her legs buckled, and Tzipporah moved to catch her.

“Don’t try to walk yet. I’ll carry you,” Tzipporah said.

“Thank you,” Miriam said again. She leaned back in Tzipporah’s arms, and Tzipporah cradled her as gently as though holding a newborn lamb.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Content warning for injury description.

Jethro’s tent doubled as a meeting space for anyone who wanted to use it. When Tzipporah arrived there, carrying Miriam, she had to shoo out two children who were playing a game of spinning tops with her father. 

“Go on, go find someone else to bother,” she said. She almost added, _Go find Moses_, but stopped herself. Maybe Miriam was a common name among the Hebrews. Maybe the familiarity was coincidental. She’d only seen Moses’s sister once, and then only for a few tense minutes. She couldn’t be certain.

Jethro stood up from the game, his eyes widening.

“This is Miriam,” Tzipporah said, anticipating her father’s questions. “She’s a freed slave from Egypt. I found her collapsed near the well. She’s injured.”

“Set her down here,” Jethro said, gesturing at the bed shoved to the side. Tzipporah did so. Miriam needed help sitting up, and Tzipporah supported her with a hand on her shoulder. She left her hand there for a second longer than necessary. Then she drew back to let her father take over.

“Miriam, was it? I’m Jethro, the high priest.” Jethro smiled reassuringly. 

Miriam managed a small smile in return. “Thank you for your kindness,” she said.

“Think nothing of it. We don’t turn away anyone in need of help.” Jethro’s tone turned serious as he asked, “How badly are you injured?”

“I was whipped, before Pharaoh freed me. The wounds were healing, but I wasn’t able to change the bandages on my journey here. I think it’s gotten worse.”

Tzipporah frowned. _Pharaoh freed her? Personally? And then left her in the desert with no water?_

Miriam pulled one sleeve of her dress down over her shoulder to show her back. The sight stopped Tzipporah’s thoughts cold. The stained bandages had come loose to reveal thick black lines of dried blood. Some scabs had peeled away to show shiny new skin forming underneath. In places, the fragile new skin had torn, releasing trickles of fresh blood. Deeper, nastier looking wounds oozed greenish pus. Tzipporah’s eyes followed one bloody line down to where it disappeared under Miriam’s dress. She noted the patched fabric again and thought, _If a whip can tear through cloth like that, what would it do to skin? _

Jethro’s jovial smile disappeared. When he spoke, he sounded calm as ever. Tzipporah wasn’t fooled.

“Tzipporah, help her out of that dress. I’ll find bandages and see if we have any honey to make a poultice.” She nodded. Her father departed the tent, his brow furrowed.

Tzipporah knelt by Miriam, feeling suddenly self-conscious. She’d grown up casually undressing around the other Midian women, thinking more about the desert heat than her modesty. Undressing a woman she didn’t know, a stranger, was different. It didn’t help that she had never had to deal with injuries like these before.

Miriam had no such reservations. She pulled the dress up over her hips, seeming not to notice where Tzipporah’s eyes strayed. Tzipporah had braced herself to see old scars, but to her surprise, Miriam’s skin was smooth and unmarked. 

The wet sleeves of the dress clung to Miriam. She fumbled trying to get her arms out. Tzipporah reached forward to help and Miriam raised her arms, allowing Tzipporah to pull the dress off over her head. Tzipporah focused on unwrapping the bandages, letting the wounds distract her from untoward thoughts.

_ Remember what the Egyptians almost did to you? Who knows what they did to her? The last thing she wants is a strange woman leering at her while she’s too injured to defend herself. _

She set Miriam’s dress aside, laying it flat to dry. 

“You use honey to treat wounds?” Miriam asked.

Tzipporah met her eyes, grateful for a reason not to look at the rest of her. “Yes,” she said. “An Egyptian trader who passed through here suggested it. He said that’s what they do in Egypt. It helps with healing.”

Miriam frowned. “You trade with Egyptians?”

“Not often. No one likes them much, but there are a few things we can’t get from anyone else.”

Tzipporah gestured for Miriam to lie down. She did so, lying on her stomach with her chin propped on her hands. Tzipporah grabbed a blanket from the corner of the tent and draped it over Miriam, leaving her injuries visible. There was hardly a patch of skin left unmarred on her back. Any lacerations not scabbed over were crusted with dried pus. Tzipporah touched one wound lightly and felt the heat emanating from it.

“These are badly infected,” she said. She did not want to frighten Miriam, so she went on. “Don’t worry, we’ll take care of you. You’ll recover.”

Miriam was so quiet, Tzipporah wondered whether she had passed out again. Then she said, very softly, “They never get infected.”

“What?” Tzipporah said.

“I’ve been whipped before. The wounds never became infected, and they never left scars. God always protected me.”

Tzipporah did not know how to respond to that. Luckily at that moment, Jethro returned. He carried a jar of honey, and quickly set to work covering Miriam’s wounds with it. 

“So,” said Jethro. “How did you come to be freed and make your way to us?”

“You know of Moses, the prince of Egypt.” Miriam shifted to look at Tzipporah. “He was following you the night I saw you in Goshen.”

Jethro and Tzipporah met each other’s eyes. “Yes,” said Tzipporah.

“He’s my brother.” Miriam must have taken their silence for disbelief, because her next words came out in a flood. “My mother sent him down the Nile in a basket when he was a baby to save him from Pharaoh. The Queen found him –"

Tzipporah cut her off. “We know.” She took one of Miriam’s hands in her own. “Miriam, your brother is here.”

Miriam stared at her, eyes wide and uncomprehending.

“He’s here,” Tzipporah repeated. “Moses came to Midian. He’s been living with us since.”

A minute ago, Miriam had been too weak to stand unassisted. Now she let go of Tzipporah’s hand and surged to her feet, clutching the blanket around herself.

“He’s here?” she said. Tzipporah had never heard a voice so full of hope. 

“Yes,” Tzipporah said. She stood up too. 

“I’ll get him,” she promised. “I’ll bring him to you.”

She did not wait for Miriam or her father to speak. She just left. As soon as she stepped out of the tent, she began to run. Wherever Moses was, she was going to find him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, that's an anachronistic dreidl reference in the first paragraph.  
There's some evidence that honey has antibacterial properties, and it was used as a wound dressing in ancient Egypt. Check out the Sawbones podcast episode on honey for more information.


	11. Chapter 11

As luck would have it, Moses was returning to the camp when Tzipporah found him. He carried firewood in a sling on his back and walked with his head lowered, and so did not see her until she called his name.

“What is it?” he asked.

Tzipporah skidded to a halt in front of him. “Miriam is here,” she said.

He dropped the firewood. “She’s here?” he repeated. “How?”

“I’ll explain on the way there.”

They began the trek back to camp, Tzipporah relaying what little she knew. Once at Jethro’s tent, she pulled back the flap to see Miriam sitting up on the bed, her hands clasped tightly in her lap. She wore an old dress of Tzipporah’s. Jethro must have been saving for Ephorah. It hung loosely on her, revealing the bandages wrapped around her chest.

Moses stopped just outside the tent. He stared at Miriam. His mouth opened, but no sound emerged. Tzipporah nudged him forwards. She dropped the tent flap to give the two some privacy.

“Moses,” Miriam said. The brightness of unshed tears glittered in her eyes. “You’re here.”

“Yes,” Moses said. He looked to Tzipporah as though for help.

“I’ve told Miriam how you came to join us,” Jethro said. “Sit down, and she can explain how she came here.”

Moses sat. Tzipporah did the same. She positioned herself beside the bed, halfway between him and Miriam. Miriam’s hands moved restlessly, like leaves stirred by a current of water.

“Tzipporah said you were injured,” Moses said.

Miriam’s hands stilled. “I was whipped for touching you on the day you killed the guard,” she said.

“I didn’t know. I’m sorry.”

Moses apologized often, Tzipporah had noticed. It was like he wanted to make up for all the apologies he had neglected to give as a prince. This “sorry” sounded rawer, more pained, than any she had yet heard.

“It wasn’t your fault,” Miriam assured him.

_It wasn’t. Still, he should have known a slave would be punished for daring to touch royalty_, Tzipporah thought.

“What happened afterwards?” Jethro prompted.

Piece by piece, Miriam revealed the story of her exile. When she spoke about meeting Pharaoh and his family, Moses leaned forward. Tzipporah noted the longing in his eyes.

_Pharaoh sent his sister to die in the desert. Doesn’t he understand that? _

Apparently not, because when Miriam finished speaking, Moses said, “I can’t believe the guard just left you in the desert with no water.”

“Pharaoh is a coward as well as a murderer,” Tzipporah said. She spoke loudly enough that Moses actually flinched. “He wanted Miriam dead, but didn’t want the guilt of killing someone who looked like his son. He tried to kill her in a way that would let him blame it on the will of the gods.”

“Perhaps not,” Jethro said, in a gentler tone. “It might have been the cruelty of that one guard, not an order from Pharaoh.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Miriam interrupted. “Moses and I are here now. As soon as I’ve recovered, we can go back to Egypt.”

This was a turn Tzipporah had not expected. Judging by Moses’s expression, he hadn’t either.

“Why would we go back?” he asked.

“To free everyone.” Miriam spoke as though the answer was self-evident. Like going back to the country she had been exiled from on pain of death was the most logical thing in the world. “Pharaoh wouldn’t listen to me, but he’ll listen to you. You can convince him to free us.”

“Miriam…” Moses’s voice trailed off helplessly. Jethro moved to his side and placed a hand on his shoulder.

“This is all a lot to take in,” Jethro said in his big, friendly rumble. “For now, Miriam, you should rest. You and Moses can talk about your plans later.”

Tzipporah jumped in. “My father is right. You need time to recover. You nearly died out in the desert.”

Miriam’s hands plucked at the blanket. “We have to go back as soon as possible,” she said to Moses. “God led me to you so that I could lead you back to our people.”

Tzipporah spoke again, louder. “I’ll carry you to my tent. You can stay with me and my sisters.”

“A good idea,” Jethro said. “I’m sure your sisters won’t mind sharing. Moses, I’ve just remembered something I wanted to talk to you about.” Jethro steered Moses out of the tent.

Tzipporah helped Miriam to her feet. Miriam leaned against her. She offered no resistance when Tzipporah once again picked her up.

_She’s lighter than she should be. Probably half-starved._

“We have to go back,” Miriam repeated, as Tzipporah stepped out of the tent. Tzipporah wondered how much damage the sun and heat had done. Perhaps delirium was setting in. That would explain why her voice sounded weaker.

“We have to go back. God told me Moses would save us.”

“What?” Tzipporah said. She must have misheard.

Miriam’s eyes closed and her hands went limp. She slipped once more into unconsciousness, leaving Tzipporah’s question unanswered.


	12. Chapter 12

Miriam slept for most of the next day and well into the afternoon of the day after that. She woke when Tzipporah came to bring her food and change her bandages, and sometimes when a dream startled her awake, though she could never remember the dreams afterwards. When she woke on the second day, she found herself alone in the tent. She sat up slowly, and was relieved to find the pain in her back had lessened.

She was not hungry. She vaguely recalled Tzipporah waking her that morning and coaxing her to eat, though she had slipped back into sleep as soon as Tzipporah left.

_I wonder if Aaron ate enough today. Is he taking care of himself without me there?_

At the thought of Aaron, her eyes stung. She closed them and slowed her breathing. There was nothing she could do for him. Not until she went back to Egypt.

Miriam lay back down and tried to return to sleep, but now that Aaron had crossed her mind, sleep was impossible. She shoved the blanket aside and stood up. The effort left her dizzy, but she gritted her teeth and waited for the dizziness to abate.

Tzipporah had told her to rest a dozen times, but Miriam was not used to rest. She paced the length of the tent, back and forth. Her hands ached for something to do.

_I’m free from slavery for the first time in my life, and all I want to do is work._

She had her back to the tent’s entrance when she heard the fabric rustle. She turned, and her restless heart leapt. Moses stood there, holding up one side of the tent flap.

“May I come in?” he asked.

“Yes, of course.”

He did so, sitting gingerly on the edge of the nearest blanket. She took the opposite side.

“How are you feeling?” he asked.

“Better. With God’s help, I’ll be healed soon.”

Moses did not move his hands the same way Aaron did. Aaron’s hands were quick and fidgety. Moses clasped and unclasped his with slow, cautious deliberation. Miriam waited for him to speak. Silence thickened between them.

“Can I see your bracelet?” he asked at last.

Miriam handed it over. Moses turned it, running his fingers over the turquoise stones as though reading a story engraved into them.

“Pharaoh gave this to my mother -to the Queen,” he said. “For formal events, she wore more expensive jewelry, but she liked to wear this one for family outings. She told me that when I started teething as a baby, it was my favorite thing to chew on.”

He handed it back, and Miriam slipped it on again. She had seen very little of Moses during the first years after his adoption. Royal children were kept safe inside the palace. It comforted her to have something that belonged to that part of her brother’s life.

The cynical voice in her head that sounded like Aaron whispered, _And where did they get the money to pay for the gold and turquoise? From the blood of your people, that’s where._

“I’m sorry,” Moses said abruptly.

“For what?” she asked.

“For hurting you that night at the well. If I had known –no.” He stopped himself, then continued. “It shouldn’t have mattered whether I knew you were my sister or not. I threw you to the ground. I was ready to have you whipped. I shouldn’t have done that to anyone.”

Miriam remembered that night. She remembered reaching out, wanting to hold her little brother, only to have him grab her arm and twist. She remembered the sharp shock of pain, and she remembered, too, that in the instant following it she had forgiven him.

Moses did not ask her to forgive him. He just sat there, staring at his hands in his lap.

She reached for him, just as she had the night at the well. She placed a hand on his shoulder, and though she understood why he flinched (_he was royalty, he’s not used to being touched_), it still hurt to see.

“I wish our first meeting could have been different,” she said. “But we’re together now.”

He looked up at that and smiled a little. “Yes,” he said. “And I’m glad to know that you’re safe. We’re both safe here.”

_Aaron isn’t_. She drew her hand back. She knew she was about to hurt him again.

“We’re safe,” she said. “But the slaves back in Egypt aren’t.”

Sure enough, his expression changed. “You really want to go back?” he asked.

“We have to. We can’t stay here, knowing that our people are suffering.”

“But what could we do, if we went back?” Frustration strained his voice. “I know you think I can help, but I can’t. Pharaoh won’t listen to me. Do you know what he said, when I confronted him about –” His voice faltered.

“About killing our children?” she said, quietly.

“Yes.” He took a deep breath, steadying himself. “He told me they were only slaves.”

Here, Miriam wanted to cut in, but Moses continued, “I’d heard him talk about the slaves like that before. He said they were uncivilized, their practices were barbaric, they’d undermine the empire if left unchecked. I didn’t realize until that moment that he meant every word. He’ll never free them.”

Miriam kept her voice soft, even as her words hardened. “We have to try,” she said. “Even if he kills us –”

Moses stood. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I can’t.”

She did not call out to him as he left, though she longed to do so. Tears stung her eyes once more. This time, she let them fall.


	13. Chapter 13

Days passed, sometimes with creeping slowness, and sometimes with shocking speed. Every time Miriam lay down in the tent, even if she only meant to rest for a minute, sleep claimed her.

“That’s normal,” Tzipporah told her. “You nearly died. You need time to recover.”

These periods of sleep ate up her hours, but when she wasn’t sleeping, she was painfully aware of each passing minute. Here she was, free, while her people remained in slavery. And the one person who could free them would barely talk to her.

Moses made a point of never being alone with her. He visited daily with Tzipporah or Jethro. He talked to her about the weather and funny things Tzipporah’s sisters had done. But he gave her no chance to talk about returning to Egypt.

She took to imagining conversations with Aaron. Even when he disagreed with her (which was often), he always listened.

_I know Moses is afraid. We’re all afraid. But can’t he see that this is more important than any one person’s fear?_

_Apparently, he can’t. Makes you wonder why God even picked him._

She could hear Aaron’s sarcastic tone so clearly, it brought tears to her eyes. It also brought an idea.

_God is the one who picked him. God must have a plan. I just need to understand what that plan is._

She had been lying down, staring at the side of the tent without seeing it. She sat up now. She closed her eyes and hummed a prayer. When she felt the melody vibrating through her, she switched to chanting aloud.

“Baruch atah Adonai, Eloheinu melech haolam…”

It was important, she felt, to begin with praise. Demands were how guards talked to slaves: _go there, carry that, move faster_. She hated how they spoke. She would not make demands of her God.

She continued through the prayer, thanking God for all He had done for her so far. Then she said, “You spoke to me once before. Please, speak to me again. I need to know what You want from me. I want to bring Moses back to Egypt and free our people. I can’t do it without Your help.”

She listened. She waited. No voice spoke.

“Why?” she asked. “Why was it only that one time?”

“Miriam?” The voice belonged to Tzipporah. “Are you all right?” she asked. She carried cloth for bandages. The morning sunlight behind her glinted off her jewelry.

Miriam blinked and looked away. “I’m fine,” she said. “I was praying.”

“While you’re at it, you should pray for Moses. He’s just started shepherding, and he’s already been bitten twice.”

“Sheep bite?” Miriam asked, momentarily distracted from her failed prayer.

“They’re not as good at biting as camels are, but they’ll try. Not with me, though. They know better.”

An involuntary smile tugged at Miriam’s lips. It was impossible not to admire Tzipporah’s self-assurance.

She undressed and helped, as best she could, while Tzipporah changed her bandages. Tzipporah kept talking, sharing light, easy stories about how Moses’s first day of shepherding had gone.

_Her voice is beautiful. I wonder if she sings?_

If Moses would not speak to her, and neither would God, at least she could take comfort in knowing Tzipporah would.

* * *

That night, Miriam stood at the edge of the Nile.

She knew she was dreaming. She always knew, though she could never wake from her dreams: not the happy ones of her family reunited or the nightmares of soldiers marching through the streets with bloodied weapons.

The Nile’s mud felt soft and cool under her feet.

_Why here? _She turned around, taking in her surroundings. This wasn’t the part of the Nile she remembered most vividly, the bank where her mother had set Moses adrift in the basket. But it was familiar.

“Miriam.”

She did not turn towards the voice. She recognized it too well, because it was her own. She knew that if she looked, she would see nothing and no one. That was what had happened before.

“Thank You for answering me,” she said. “I knew You would, one day.”

The sensation filling her felt like a song, sounded like an embrace, and tasted like light. Part of her wanted to fall to her knees in gratitude. Part of her -the stubborn part that she shared with Aaron - wanted to cry out, _Why did You take so long?_ As a compromise, she bowed her head.

“I kept him safe, as You wanted. I watched over him,” she continued. “I left my people to find him. I even left Aaron behind.”

The voice did not reply.

“You said Moses would be the one to free us. Doesn’t he understand that?”

Still, no response.

“How much longer must I wait?” Her voice trembled and verged on breaking. “It’s been eighteen years since You talked to me. For all those years, I hoped and prayed. I saw my father die a slave, and then my mother. Moses could end all of that. When will he understand?”

A sigh rippled the surface of the river. “Not yet.”

She tried a different tack. “How do I persuade him? There must be something I can say.”

“I cannot force him to do anything before he is ready, Miriam. Neither can you.”

Miriam lifted her chin. Sunlight danced off the river, dazzling her. “I can try,” she said. “I have to. We are running out of time.”

“Our people have survived for four hundred years. They can survive a little longer.”

“Hundreds of children didn’t survive,” Miriam countered. “Every day back there is a day of more lives being lost. Four hundred years may be nothing for You, but it’s lifetimes for us. We can’t wait any longer.”

“You must.”

“I _can’t_.” Miriam clenched her fist, and though it was only a dream, she felt her nails digging into her palm. “I will go back to Egypt alone if I have to. I can’t stay out here. Aaron –”

“Aaron will survive.” The voice was firm, absolute. Miriam wanted to trust it, and yet…

“Swear to me,” she said. “By Your covenant with us, swear to me that Aaron will live to see freedom.”

“I swear it to you.”

A bird darted from the other side of the river in a blaze of blue. Without knowing why, Miriam raised her hand, and the bird landed upon it. It spread its wings for balance, then cocked its head to look at her.

_A kingfisher._

With that, Miriam woke.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Baruch atah Adonai, Eloheinu melech haolam” (“Blessed is the Lord our God, Sovereign of the universe”) is how many modern Jewish prayers begin, though its use here is anachronistic.
> 
> Exodus 12:40 says that the Israelites spent four hundred and thirty years in slavery, which is the basis for the “four hundred years” that Miriam and God reference. I could have done the math to figure exactly how long it's been at this point in the narrative, but A) I don't think anyone would actually say, "It's been 390 years and seven months," B) I doubt any of the Israelites have been keeping an exact count and C) I didn't want to do math.


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains brief discussion and description of sexual assault.

Moonlight filtering through the tent fabric turned the light inside gray. Miriam lay still, listening to Tzipporah’s sisters breathing. Slow, peaceful breaths. No dreams troubled their rest. She sat up just enough to see Tzipporah asleep next to her.

Miriam rose, moving as quietly as possible. She slipped outside, walked a few paces away, and sat down. The moon was only a fragment in the sky, giving little light, but she closed her eyes anyways. She slowed her breathing, waiting for the emotions stirred by her dream to subside.

Footsteps sounded behind her. When she turned, she saw Tzipporah standing there, rubbing her eyes.

“Did I wake you?” Miriam asked.

“Yes, but I’m a light sleeper.” Tzipporah sat down next to her. Miriam waited for her to speak.

“You couldn’t sleep?” Tzipporah asked.

“I had a dream,” Miriam said.

“A nightmare?”

“Not exactly.”

Tzipporah angled her face up towards the sky. The stars seemed closer here in Midian. They shone so bright and clear, Miriam could imagine reaching up and plucking them from the heavens.

“I never used to have nightmares,” Tzipporah said. “They started after I was captured by the Egyptians. I’ve found going outside and looking at the stars helps.”

In the moon’s weak light, Miriam could not make out Tzipporah’s expression, and she did not yet know her well enough to interpret her tone. Still, she risked a question.

“How were you captured? Do slavers come through here often?”

“No, it was just bad luck,” Tzipporah said. “I took the sheep far away from the camp. We have to move them or they’ll overgraze the land. It was a beautiful day, and I wanted some solitude. I took the camel and went out farther than I should have. Some slavers spotted me, decided a woman alone would be an easy target, and, well… you’ve heard what happened next.”

Tzipporah did not move her hands when she spoke. They lay still in her lap, giving no clue as to her feelings. But Miriam noticed her tensing, drawing in on herself. Tzipporah turned her gaze away from the stars, and their eyes met.

“I haven’t really discussed it with anyone,” Tzipporah said. “Ephorah asked me what had happened when I first got back, and I tried to reassure her, but we haven’t talked about it since. I didn’t want to frighten my sisters or worry my father. I’ve talked a little with Moses, but I don’t think he understands.”

Miriam’s first instinct was to defend her brother (_of course he understands, he has to understand_). Then she remembered their last conversation.

“What do you wish you could tell them?” she asked instead.

Tzipporah leaned back and pressed her palms to the ground on either side of her. She seemed perfectly balanced, like a bird perched and ready for flight.

“The slavers had captured another woman. She was from a different tribe, and I didn’t know her language, so we couldn’t talk to each other. She cried every night. Even when I managed to sleep, I heard her in my dreams.”

“What happened to her?”

“She was sold,” Tzipporah said. “They took us to a slave market. Someone bought her. I thought I’d have a chance to say something, comfort her somehow, but it all happened too fast.”

Miriam laid a hand on Tzipporah’s shoulder. “She might have escaped as well,” she offered.

“Maybe. More likely, she’s still some rich nobleman’s plaything. Like I nearly was.” Tzipporah dug her fingers into the sand, leaving grooves. “They tied my hands, but that didn’t stop me from fighting. One man thought he could grope me while the slavers had their backs turned. I nearly bit his finger off.”

“You were brave,” Miriam said. “Aaron used to stop me from fighting back. He said it was reckless.”

Tzipporah smiled grimly. “It _was_ reckless. I got lucky. The palace priests were standing nearby and happened to see me bite him. That was what made them decide to buy me. Moses says they wanted to get back at Rameses by giving him a slave who’d be hard to manage.”

Tzipporah shifted position, and Miriam dropped her hand.

“I’ve wanted to ask for a while… did anything like that happen to you?” Tzipporah asked.

“Like what?”

“Did they ever threaten to rape you?”

Miriam knew why Tzipporah had been taken as a slave, but she winced at hearing the word so bluntly stated.

“No,” she said. “They didn’t do that to Hebrew slaves.”

Even as she spoke, a memory flashed in her mind: a woman in the doorway, her clothes torn and her eyes panicked. Miriam had been ten years old, old enough to help her mother tend the beaten and broken people who came to their home. As a midwife, Yocheved had been one of very few Hebrews with any medical knowledge. She hadn’t let Miriam help that day, though. She had sent both her children out of the house, telling Miriam to watch her little brother. Only now did it occur to Miriam why she might have done so.

For a while they sat in silence, listening to the wind stir the trees around them. Then Tzipporah spoke again.

“You know, when you first came here, you said something about God talking to you. I thought maybe you were delirious.” Tzipporah was aiming for casual and missing badly. Her voice rose in an unasked question.

This time it was Miriam’s turn to draw in on herself, wrapping her arms around her knees. “Do you promise not to tell Moses?” she asked.

Tzipporah nodded. A cloud drifted across the moon, plunging them into darkness.

“My mother knew that Pharaoh was plotting to kill our children. This was before Moses was born. She told my father, and his solution was to divorce her.” Miriam tried to keep the bitterness out of her voice. “He said that if Pharaoh was going to kill our children, then why have more children? Better to let our people die out than be murdered. I did not truly understand. I was too young. I didn’t want to hear them arguing any more, so I went down to the river, and…” She stopped. She had carried this secret for so long, and though the burden weighed on her, she hesitated to put it down.

“And what?” Tzipporah prompted.

“And God spoke to me.”

The cloud passed and moonlight streamed down on them again. A thousand stars gleamed like unblinking eyes.

“He told me that my mother’s next child would be the one to save us. He told me to go back home, and to take courage, because I would see freedom in my lifetime. I went back. I told my mother what God had told me. My father came back to us.”

When Tzipporah spoke, her words came slowly.

“God spoke to you.”

“Yes.”

“That would make you a prophet.”

“Yes.”

“No one else knows?”

“I only told my parents. Both of them are dead now. I never even told Aaron.”

The desert sand gleamed silver in the starlight, beautiful and peaceful as the surface of a still lake.

“But why not tell Moses? If it’s true that God spoke to you –”

“It _is_ true.” Miriam had wrestled with her own doubts for too long to listen to anyone else’s.

“Fine,” Tzipporah said quickly. Too quickly. “But don’t you think he’d want to go back if he knew?”

Miriam switched from looking at the sand to looking up at the stars. They, too, clustered in swirling drops of silver. But the sand felt warm, when she dug her hands down into it, and the night sky was only cold.

“Perhaps,” she said. “Or perhaps he would be frightened by the responsibility. It places a lot of pressure on you, when God tells you that you have a destiny to fulfill.”

Tzipporah, too, looked towards the stars. She shivered.

“You should go back if you’re cold,” Miriam said.

“I’m not cold. Besides, I don’t want to leave you by yourself out here.”

Miriam traced patterns in the stars with her gaze. This same sky had shone above her in Egypt for her entire life, but she had never stopped to admire the stars there. Her nights had been spent in exhausted slumber or fretful unrest. She didn’t know the name of a single constellation.

Tzipporah moved nearer to her.

“Thank you for listening to me,” Miriam said at last.

“Of course,” Tzipporah said, speaking too quickly again. She moved her hand as though about to reach for Miriam’s, then withdrew it. “Thanks for listening to me too. If you ever want to talk again, just ask. I don’t mind you waking me up.”

They stayed out under the stars for perhaps another hour, letting their conversation stray to lighter topics. When Miriam went back in, Tzipporah followed her. The sound of Tzipporah’s even breaths soothed Miriam to sleep.

\--

Back in March of 2019, I commissioned a video edit based on this chapter from the YouTuber TheNamelessDoll. You can check out the video [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VCrOcBsWC4Y&feature=youtu.be).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes: The story about Miriam’s parents temporarily separating comes from a rabbinic midrash on Exodus 2:1, which interprets the line stating that Amram “went and married” Yocheved to mean that he “returned and re-married” her. 
> 
> Miriam is explicitly referred to as a prophet in Exodus 15:20, but when and how she prophesied isn’t explained. The version here is based on a story from the Torah commentator Rashi, who says that God told Miriam that her brother Moses would deliver the Israelites from slavery.


	15. Chapter 15

Over the following weeks, Tzipporah settled into her new nighttime routine. When Miriam couldn’t sleep, she woke Tzipporah, and the two of them went out to look at the stars. Miriam told stories about Egypt and her work there as a midwife. Tzipporah shared tales of her life and family. She focused on the funny stories, most of which involved misbehaving livestock, and felt a rush of pleasure whenever Miriam laughed.

One night, as their conversation sank into a lull, Tzipporah said, “Tomorrow is shabbat. You’ve slept through the last few evening celebrations, but I was wondering if you wanted to join us this time.”

Moonlight gleamed down on Miriam, lining her face with silver. “What do you do for shabbat?” she asked.

“The usual. Food, singing. Dancing, if there’s enough wine to go around.”

“We couldn’t do that, back in Egypt.” Miriam smoothed the folds of her dress. “Most days, Aaron and I were too tired to do more than pray. And the Egyptians didn’t like us gathering in big groups.”

“Then this will be good for you. You’re healing well. If anyone deserves an excuse to celebrate, it’s you.”

That was all it took to persuade Miriam.

* * *

Though Miriam offered to help with preparing food, Tzipporah and Jethro flatly refused to allow it.

“You’re our guest,” Jethro said. “We don’t ask guests to work.”

So Miriam sat with Tzipporah’s sisters, keeping them entertained until the feast was ready.

And what a feast it was! Sweet dates, fresh loaves of bread, jars of rich honey, and enough wine to sate everyone’s thirst. As the night wore on, voices rose and the occasional laughter changed to a background rumble of mirth.

Moses sat next to Jethro, and though Miriam caught his eye once or twice, they made no effort to speak to each other.

_It’s better that they don’t talk yet_, Tzipporah thought.

To take Miriam’s mind off her brother, Tzipporah kept up a stream of commentary, telling her about everyone in the tribe: “That’s Rivka. She and her husband Yosef are expecting their first child. The old woman by the fire is Naomi, the midwife. She’s good at her work, but grumpier than a donkey in a rainstorm.”

The sky darkened, and parents ushered yawning children back into their tents. The adults stayed, and a few began to dance. It started with husbands and wives, but the dancing quickly spread. Single men and women kept a respectful distance apart, though as always, those who were courting traded flirtatious glances. Those with an interest in their own sex were bolder, trading not only looks but also discreet touches.

Hobab leaned close to Yaakov and whispered something in his ear. Yaakov nodded, and the two of them left their seats to join the dance. They pressed close together, their lips moving in a tender conversation that Tzipporah could not hear, but could easily imagine. She smirked, watching Hobab’s hand drift dangerously low on Yaakov’s waist. Tradition forbid unmarried women dancing with men, on the grounds that it might lead to promiscuity. Tradition said nothing about men dancing with men or women with women, however promiscuous their intentions. Tzipporah had exploited this loophole for years.

Someone started singing, and within moments, everyone else picked up the melody.

_“Lecha dodi likrat kala _

_Penei Shabbat ne kabbalah” _

Tzipporah hummed the song for a few lines. Then she stood and offered a hand to Miriam. “Come on. Let’s join the dancers,” she said.

Miriam shook her head. “I’d rather watch,” she said.

Tzipporah let her be. She joined the circle, the other dancers parting to let her in. The hem of her blue dress fluttered like feathers. She could have joined hands with any woman, and knew several who would have welcomed the opportunity. But she preferred to dance alone.

When the song ended, she returned to Miriam’s side.

“You dance well,” Miriam said.

“Thanks,” Tzipporah replied. She’d heard the compliment many times, but hearing it from Miriam made her oddly giddy.

Someone tried to restart the song.

_“Lecha dodi likrat kala…” _

_Come, my beloved, to meet the bride… _

“We’ve heard that already! Sing something else!” Naomi called out, and the song changed.

Miriam hummed along to the new song, and when the chorus came in, sang it under her breath.

“You know this one?” Tzipporah asked.

“We sang it back in Egypt.”

“Do you know how to dance to it?”

Miriam looked from Tzipporah’s face to her extended hand. With a smile, she took it.

They danced apart from the crowd. Miriam missed a step and Tzipporah steadied her. She felt callouses on Miriam’s hands. The result of years of hard labor, no doubt. She pushed the thought from her mind. She didn’t want to think about the roughness of Miriam’s small hands or the wounds turning to scars on her back. Tonight, all she wanted to do was give Miriam some joy.

Miriam’s steps grew surer. She mirrored Tzipporah, turning when she turned and moving where she moved. At this distance from the other dancers, the dying fire provided little light, but the stars were bright enough for Tzipporah to see Miriam smiling. When the song ended, they stopped dancing but did not release each other’s hands.

“You dance well too,” Tzipporah said.

Miriam half-shrugged. Was it Tzipporah’s imagination, or did her face look more flushed than could be explained by wine and dancing alone?

“I haven’t danced in years,” she said.

“You’ll have plenty of chances to practice here.”

Miriam looked away. She released Tzipporah’s hands and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “Yes,” she said, and then: “Would you dance with me again, next time?”

“I’d love to,” Tzipporah said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Technically, the existence of shabbat in this chapter is anachronistic. God does not explain shabbat to the Israelite people until after they have been freed from slavery. In my headcanon, the Midianites had independently developed a tradition of celebrating the seventh day of the week, with fewer restrictions than the modern shabbat.
> 
> According to the directors’ commentary from the Prince of Egypt DVD, many cultures in this area and time period did ban unmarried men and women dancing together. I have no evidence to suggest that queer people took advantage of this loophole, but on the other hand, I have no evidence to prove that they didn’t.
> 
> Hobab is a Midianite mentioned in Numbers 10:29. In that scene, he has a conversation with Moses that sounds subtextually gay to me, so here, I made him explicitly gay.
> 
> Like shabbat, the song that appears in this chapter, “Lecha Dodi,” is also anachronistic. The song was not written until the sixteenth century. However, I enjoyed the queer implications of Tzipporah dancing to a song about welcoming shabbat like a bride.


	16. Chapter 16

Naomi was the best midwife in the tribe, a title she had held for years by being the only midwife. Her last apprentice had quit in frustration, so Tzipporah had taken over assisting at births. She’d thought it would be easy, having helped at countless lambings. 

It was not easy. Unlike sheep, people screamed. Not that she blamed Rivka for screaming. Her labor had gone on for hours, and the baby showed no signs of budging. 

Rivka lay on her side, her eyes glassy. Sweat poured down her face, shining in the light of the lamp. Tzipporah dampened a cloth with water from the pitcher and wiped her brow. The water was running low. She didn’t dare leave to get more. Bad enough to face childbirth alone, worse to face it with no one but Naomi. 

“Get back up, girl,” Naomi snapped. “Do you want this baby out or not?”

Rivka tried to stand. A contraction brought her to her knees.

“Let her rest,” Tzipporah said.

“The baby will come faster and easier if she’s standing. With her family history, we have to act fast.”

Rivka’s mother, like Tzipporah’s, had come as a refugee from Cush, fleeing a small but vicious war. They had settled in Midian and married into the tribe. A few men muttered that the marriages would bring bad luck. Dangerous to invite in outsiders with strange customs, people who worshipped strange gods. Jethro silenced the mutterings, but bad luck came anyway. Both women suffered from miscarriages and stillbirths. Such blights ran in families, which was one of many reasons Tzipporah was not eager to marry.

She helped Rivka to her feet. Rivka clung to her so tightly, her nails left imprints in Tzipporah’s arm. 

Naomi recited prayers that sounded more like curses. She pressed her hands against Rivka’s stomach.

“It’s stopped kicking,” she said. “You’d better prepare yourself.”

Rivka gave a muffled sob. Tzipporah rubbed her back with her free hand.

“What can I do?” she asked Naomi.

“Not much. You don’t have the touch for this kind of work.” Naomi had never been intimidated by Tzipporah’s status as the high priest’s daughter. Some days Tzipporah appreciated that. This wasn’t one of those days.

“There has to be something,” she said.

Naomi shook her head. “Odds are, the baby will come out dead. All we can do is make sure the girl survives.” 

Naomi never referred to any woman by name during a birth. She claimed that not saying names aloud kept the Angel of Death away. With no names spoken, the Angel wouldn’t know who to take. Tzipporah thought that if that worked, the Angel of Death had to be pretty stupid.

Naomi knelt in front of Rivka. Tzipporah looked to see what she was doing and hastily looked away. She could deal with the blood and offal and other wet, squishy bits that accompanied sheep slaughter. But she hated to see Naomi’s hands slick with Rivka’s blood. It reminded her too much of the blood she had seen in Egypt.

_Egypt. Why did I think about Egypt?_

“The baby is the wrong way up,” Naomi announced. “Can’t tell if it’s breathing.”

_I escaped Egypt. Miriam helped me. _

Rivka sobbed again.

“Miriam is a midwife,” Tzipporah said out loud. 

“So?” Naomi asked.

“She can help.”

“We need a miracle worker, not another midwife,” Naomi said.

“Miriam can help,” Tzipporah repeated._ If God really does favor her, then Rivka and her child will survive. _

Naomi sighed. “Well, she can’t make things any worse. Go get her. I’ll keep the girl standing.” Naomi got to her feet and gripped Rivka’s shoulder with claw-like hands.

Tzipporah left the tent. Outside, stars shone in an inky sky. A light glowed in Jethro’s tent. Yosef, Rivka’s husband, would be there. No doubt Jethro was reassuring him by telling tales about Tzipporah and her sisters. He wouldn’t mention burying a son, two daughters, and a child born so early its sex couldn’t be determined. 

Tzipporah pulled back the flap of her own tent. Her sisters were asleep, but for once, Miriam’s sleeplessness had good timing. She sat by a lamp, patching a hole in one of Yiska’s dresses. She looked up at the sound of Tzipporah entering.

“Rivka is giving birth,” Tzipporah said. “It’s going badly. I know you haven’t fully recovered yet, but -”

Miriam was already on her feet. “I can help,” she said.

Tzipporah summarized the situation on the way to Rivka’s tent. Once there, she took her place at Rivka’s side again. Naomi eyed Miriam, then grabbed her hand for closer inspection.

“You’ve got small hands. That’ll be a help,” she said.

“No mother or child has ever died under my watch,” Miriam said. She didn’t say it like a boast. She said it like a fact. Freeing herself from Naomi’s grasp, she placed her hands on Rivka’s stomach and closed her eyes.

“Please…” Rivka whispered.

“There’s movement,” Miriam said. “Your son is still alive, Rivka.”

“Can’t tell what it is while it’s stuck inside her,” Naomi interrupted. “

It’s a boy,” Miriam said. She washed her hands with what was left of the water in the pitcher, then knelt in front of Rivka. 

In cases like this, Tzipporah knew, a midwife would reach inside the pregnant woman and attempt to pull the child out. It was extreme, and judging by the reactions of the women, agonizing. But it was better than leaving an infant to die in the womb. Naomi pulled out difficult babies the way other people pulled out thorns. She was quick, she was efficient, and she certainly didn’t sing as she did her work. 

Tzipporah didn’t recognize the melody Miriam sang. It had no words, but the tune was light, hopeful, rising like a bird in flight.

As a rule, Tzipporah did not watch during this procedure. But Rivka’s pained gasps were quieting. She risked a glance.

The flow of blood had stopped. And the crown of the baby’s head had appeared.

_How did she get the baby turned the right way so fast?_ Tzipporah wondered. Then the rest of the baby’s head emerged, and the child’s shriek stopped her from thinking.

After that, the birth went quickly. Once the baby was out, Tzipporah lowered the barely-conscious Rivka to the ground. Miriam placed the child in her arms.

Naomi had a knife ready to cut the umbilical cord, but at Miriam’s insistence, she heated the blade in the flame of the lamp first. Tzipporah was surprised to see her taking orders from anyone. But then, Miriam had already been right about one thing: the child was a boy.

The boy shrieked again when the cord was cut. Rivka stirred. Her arms tightened around her child. “He’s alive?” she said.

“Yes,” Miriam told her.

“Thank God.” Rivka reached out and took Miriam’s hand. “Thank you.”

After the worst of the mess had been dealt with, Naomi went to tell Yosef the good news. Miriam and Tzipporah left when he arrived to give the family privacy.

“How did you know it was a boy?” Tzipporah asked.

“I just know,” Miriam said. “There are things I know, but can’t explain.”

Tzipporah stumbled. The exhaustion of several hours spent supporting Rivka’s entire weight, baby and all, made her vision blur and her legs falter. Miriam took her arm to steady her.

“Thanks.”

Miriam had lovely eyelashes. Thick and dark.

_Like a camel’s_, Tzipporah thought, and then was annoyed with herself for thinking it. Camels were useful, hardy animals, and they did have impressive eyelashes, but no girl wanted to be compared to a camel. Miriam deserved better than that. Miriam, who had been ready to help the moment she was asked. Just like in Egypt…

By unspoken agreement, they stopped just outside Tzipporah’s tent. They sat on the ground, their eyes turned toward the stars.

“You’ve never had a mother or child die during a birth?” Tzipporah asked, recalling what Miriam had said earlier.

“That’s right.”

“Is it because of God speaking to you?”

“I don’t think so,” Miriam said. “My mother never lost anyone during a birth either. She never heard God’s voice.”

“What happened to her?” Tzipporah immediately regretted the question. Miriam’s mother had been a slave. Slave’s lives were short, with brutal ends.

“I wasn’t there when she died.” Miriam must have been tired too, because she rested her head on Tzipporah’s shoulder.

“She’d been growing weaker for some time. She’d lost the use of her left arm. Aaron and I stayed with her as much as we could, but a temple needed repairs. The Egyptians weren’t letting any workers stay to care for family. We came home one day, and she was gone.”

“May her memory be a blessing,” Tzipporah said.

“It has been. She’d be glad to know that I’m here with you. She hoped all of us would be able to live free one day.”

The “us” reminded Tzipporah of Aaron, still enslaved back in Egypt. Not wanting Miriam to recall another source of grief, she cast about for another subject. Before she could find one, Miriam asked, “What happened to your mother?”

“She died in childbirth,” Tzipporah said. “The baby died too.” _So much for finding a happier subject. _

“I’m sorry,” Miriam said.

“She was from Cush. Difficult births were common in her tribe.”

“What made her leave?”

“A war broke out. She didn’t talk about it much. My father says she always felt guilty about the family she left behind. She sent messages back, but never found out what happened to them.”

“It’s painful to be separated from family.”

“Like you and Moses,” Tzipporah said.

“That was different. I knew he was alive.” 

Tzipporah felt stiff from sitting in one position, but as long as Miriam’s head was on her shoulder, she wasn’t going to move. 

“Is it getting any easier to talk to him?”

“Not really. It’s easier to talk to you.”

“Why?”

“You know what it’s like to be a slave, and Moses doesn’t. But you’ve been free for most of your life. You’re brave and sure of yourself. You’re not afraid like Aaron, even though you know there’s much to fear.”

Miriam smelled faintly sweet, like milk. It was good to be close to her. It was good, too, to know that the two of them had helped bring another life into the world. Miriam needed things to be happy about. She needed new memories to banish the memories of Egypt. Tzipporah wanted to caress the scars on Miriam’s back and promise that no one would ever hurt her again. She felt protective. She felt -

_Oh._ The realization of what she was feeling hit like a kick from a camel.

“Tzipporah?” Miriam lifted her head.

“What?” Tzipporah jerked away from her, still processing the sudden revelation.

“You were quiet. I thought you were falling asleep.”

“No, I -I was just thinking.”

“About what?”

This wasn’t the time for truth. Not for something this important. Better to wait until her mind wasn’t muddled with exhaustion.

“About you helping me back in Egypt. I never asked why you did it.”

“Because you needed help,” said Miriam simply.

Tzipporah started to shake her head, then stopped, because it made her dizzy. “And you call me brave? The Egyptians would have beaten you for helping a fugitive.”

“No. For that, they would have killed me. But you would have died crossing the desert without water. I couldn’t let that happen. Anyways...” She paused, and a smile danced on her lips. “I’d never seen anyone escape before. I wanted you to be the first.”

“Can you two talk quieter?” Ephorah leaned out of the tent, a sleepy scowl on her face.

“Sorry,” Tzipporah said. 

Miriam stood, brushing sand from her dress. “Rivka had her baby,” she said to Ephorah. “A son.”

“Great. Tell me again in the morning, when I’m awake enough to remember that.” Ephorah disappeared back into the tent, though not without a hard-to-interpret glance in Tzipporah’s direction.

Miriam and Tzipporah went back in. Miriam fell asleep first. Tzipporah listened to her gentle breathing. She thought about the thrill that had raced over her skin when Miriam said, _“I wanted you.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Cush” is an ancient name for Ethiopia used in the Torah. Numbers 12:1 identifies Moses’s wife as “a Cushite,” which is confusing because Exodus 2:21 says that he married Tzipporah the Midianite. Some scholars think these were two different people; others that there was some overlap between the regions of Cush and Midian. For the purposes of this fanfiction, I took a third option: Tzipporah is half Cushite, half Midianite.
> 
> In my headcanon, Tzipporah’s and Rivka’s mothers both had sickle cell anemia, which, among other symptoms, can cause difficulty carrying pregnancies to term. This headcanon has no basis in the Torah, and is purely the result of me wondering about the age gap between Tzipporah and her sisters.
> 
> Not mentioning the name of someone in order to ward off the Angel of Death is a real Jewish superstition. In some communities, people who were ill would temporarily change their names to trick the Angel, though this is a rare custom today.


	17. Chapter 17

After Miriam’s success delivering Rivka’s son, women came to her for all the usual reasons women came to midwives: to get advice on difficult pregnancies, to get help with teething children, and in one young woman’s case, to ask stammering questions about what exactly happened during a wedding night.

Naomi grumbled that she’d been managing just fine before Miriam came along, but she didn’t stop anyone from seeking assistance. She did offer to take Miriam on as an apprentice, which Miriam politely declined. She was long past the point of apprenticeship, and anyways, she was reluctant to let herself sink too deeply into Midian life. Still, she and Naomi met often to swap stories and suggestions.

“Don’t get too sure of yourself just because of that business with Rivka. You’ve never had a child,” Naomi told her.

“I started helping my mother deliver babies when I was six. I know what I’m doing,” Miriam retorted. It wasn’t a lie, if you counted bringing scraps of cloth and cups of water as “helping.”

“Just wait until you have children.” Naomi wagged a bony finger at her. “You’ll have a whole new understanding of your work.”

“And what if I never have children?”

Naomi cocked her head to the side and squinted. Her eyes nearly disappeared into the wrinkles on her face.

“Are you asking because you can’t have them or because you don’t want them?” she asked. “Because I know some treatments for the first problem.”

Miriam respected Naomi. Sometimes, she even liked her. But there were things too private to share with the tough older woman. So she said, “I won’t have them. It’s not something you can change with treatment.”

“Well, it’s your life. None of my business.” Naomi dismissed the conversation with a wave of her hand. “All I’ll say is, if you’re not going to have children, you’d better find a spouse who doesn’t mind.”

Not until that night did Miriam realize that Naomi had said “spouse” and not “husband.” 

* * *

Miriam no longer dreaded sleeplessness, because sleepless nights meant sitting close to Tzipporah, listening to her point out constellations. She still dreaded the nightmares that made Tzipporah thrash in her sleep, but she’d learned how to deal with those. When the night terrors came, she woke Tzipporah and held her hands until the frantic pulse in her wrists slowed.

Though Tzipporah worked hard, her hands felt wonderfully soft. She said the oil in the sheep’s wool softened her skin, working far better than the fancy oils Egyptians used. Miriam always felt some regret at releasing her hands, but the regret eased when the two of them went outside to stargaze.

In the daytime, there was wool to card and spin, pottery to sculpt, food to prepare. Miriam understood the work. She was used to working, though her tasks in Midian were far easier than the tasks assigned to her in Egypt.

Freedom was harder to understand. During yet another talk with Tzipporah under the dark sky, she expressed surprise at the number of married couples in the tribe.

“What’s surprising about that?” Tzipporah asked.

“It’s different from Goshen. Because of the massacre, there aren’t many young men. That means a lot of women without husbands. There are others who refuse to marry because they don’t want to see their children grow up in slavery.”

“Is that why you didn’t marry?” Tzipporah asked. Something in her tone was strange.

“I never considered marriage,” Miriam said. “It was hard enough to survive each day. I couldn’t think that far into the future.”

“Well, you can think about it now. Plenty of eligible men in Midian. Plenty of eligible women too.”

The night was windless and Tzipporah spoke clearly. Miriam knew she hadn’t misheard, but still she asked, “What?”

“I said, there are plenty of eligible women. If you were interested.”

Miriam said nothing.

“You’re not interested, then,” Tzipporah said.

“I...I do feel attraction to women, sometimes,” Miriam admitted. She hadn’t noticed the tension in Tzipporah’s posture before, but she noticed the sudden relaxation.

“Me too,” Tzipporah said. “I can usually tell who’s like me and who isn’t, but I wasn’t sure with you.”

Miriam had seen couples of the same sex dancing together at shabbat celebrations, but just to be safe, she asked, “How do people see that here?”

“No differently than they see any other type of relationship. Most of them live together without marrying, but my father did a marriage ceremony for Hobab and his husband Yaakov two years ago.”

Miriam twisted the bracelet on her wrist, then asked, “When did you realize you preferred women?”

“I like men and women, but most men aren’t worth courting, let alone marrying. As for when I realized…” Tzipporah shrugged. “I don’t remember not knowing. I just assumed everyone felt the same way I did. It took me a long time to realize there were women who _didn’t_ want to kiss other women.”

Miriam was intensely aware of the shape Tzipporah’s lips made as they formed a question.

“When did you realize?”

“You hear a lot of things as a midwife’s daughter,” Miriam said. “I knew about women who preferred women, but I didn’t think about it until I was sixteen. I started noticing the girls my age in a different way.”

“But nothing came of it?” Tzipporah asked.

“No. I never did more than look.” It was one thing to look at a girl and admire the supple beauty of her limbs. It was another to see that girl crumpled on the ground, her back lashed bloody.

Starlight glinted off Tzipporah’s jewelry and flowed over her skin as she moved closer. “You can do a lot more than look now,” she said. “You’re free. You should enjoy your freedom.”

“With who?” Miriam asked.

“With me. If you’d like to.”

Miriam dropped her fidgeting hand from the bracelet, letting it rest on the ground. Tzipporah reached out and placed her hand over Miriam’s. Such gentle hands. Miriam had felt those hands carrying her, changing her bandages, pulling her into a dance.

_How long has she been waiting to ask me? _

“I need to think.” Miriam drew her hand back and stood up. “I’m going for a walk,” she said.

“Fine,” Tzipporah said.

Miriam had thought Tzipporah incapable of stuttering, but her voice caught as she asked, “Would - would you rather I stay here?”

“Yes,” Miriam said, and then left before Tzipporah could say anything more.

She walked away from the encampment, sand shifting unsteadily beneath her feet. In her fantasies of life after slavery, she had imagined going to bed with a woman. She had pictured the two of them nestled together, running their hands over each other’s bodies. But she had never seen a body without scars. In her fantasies, her fingers stalled on the jagged lines, dragging her out of the reverie and back to hard, broken reality. So she pushed the longings aside, told herself to wait until freedom. She had freedom now, and yet…

Miriam took a steadying breath of the cold night air. Tzipporah was beautiful. There was no harm in admitting that. Anyone would say the same. She could be capricious - Miriam had seen her pull a few pranks on Moses - but never cruel. She was especially gentle with her sisters. She said what she thought and did as she pleased, never fearing the consequences, but never doing anything that would actually cause someone harm. She had been born into freedom, and that gave her an ease with the world that Miriam lacked. If Tzipporah ever married, her spouse would be fortunate.

Miriam could not honestly describe herself as fortunate. _Bitter_, her name meant, because she had been conceived amid the bitterness of slavery. Her father had chosen it, which was why her mother had insisted on being the one to name Aaron. One day, Miriam knew, she would taste the sweetness of freedom. Real freedom, with her family and people beside her. Before that could happen, she had to return to Egypt.

She squeezed her eyes shut and prayed for the strength to say what had to be said. Then she turned back towards the tents.

Tzipporah still sat cross-legged outside. She got up at Miriam’s approach.

“I can’t,” Miriam said.

Tzipporah’s shoulders slumped, but all she asked was, “Why not?”

“I have to go back to Egypt.”

“You still want to do that?”

“It isn’t a matter of wanting. I have to.”

Tzipporah spread her hands in a placating gesture. “I won’t ask you to stay for my sake. If you don’t want me, I can live with that. I couldn’t live with myself if you went back to Egypt and got yourself killed.”

“I won’t die. God promised I would live to see freedom.”

“Which you have. You’re free here.”

Miriam’s certainty wavered, but only for an instant. “While my people aren’t free, I’m not. Even if my life is no longer protected, Moses and I have to go back.”

“Moses couldn’t live with himself if he let you die in Egypt either,” Tzipporah said.

Miriam didn’t remember taking a breath, but felt one straining at her lungs. She released it in a ragged sigh. “I won’t leave. Not until God tells me it’s time. But I can’t be with you.”

“All right,” Tzipporah said. “Fine.”

There was no good way to end that conversation. Tzipporah didn’t try. She lowered her head and turned to walk back into the tent.

“I still want to talk with you like this,” Miriam said.

Tzipporah paused. “I still want to talk with you too,” she said. Then the tent flap dropped behind her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The information about lanolin (the oil in sheep wool) acting as a natural hand lotion is accurate, though many people are allergic to it. Fortunately, Tzipporah is not.
> 
> Some ancient cultures, such as various pre-contact Native American tribes, did have gay marriage (or institutions similar to it). There’s no evidence that this was true for actual Midian society, but it’s my fanfiction and I want my characters to be able to get gay married.
> 
> The origin of the name “Miriam” is unclear, but Torah scholar Rashi claimed it derived from “mar,” meaning “bitter.”


	18. Chapter 18

On Miriam’s best pottery-sculpting days, she could almost keep pace with Keturah. Today was not one of her better days. No matter how she worked the clay, her bowl remained stubbornly lopsided.

“You need to add water when you reshape it.” Keturah took the crude bowl from her and rubbed more water into the clay. “It’ll crumble if it’s too dry.”

Three perfect bowls stood in a neat line beside Keturah. The bright sun directly overhead made them sparkle, bringing out their reddish ochre color. Red like the mud of the Nile River. Red, like drying blood.

Tzipporah had come back to the tent yesterday with blood spattered on her dress. “I’m fine, don’t worry,” she said in response to Miriam’s horrified expression. “Two of the rams got into a fight. One of them broke his horn off and bled all over me.”

In the past, Tzipporah had undressed casually around Miriam, not even bothering to turn her back. In the weeks following their talk about courtship and marriages, she had become more discreet. Both of them politely turned away, though Miriam looked over her shoulder once for reassurance that Tzipporah really wasn’t injured. It still amazed her not to see whip scars on Tzipporah’s back.

Tzipporah pulled on a new dress and asked if Miriam could wash the stained one tomorrow. She added, “I can do it myself if I leave early. You don’t have to.”

“I can do it now.”

She had washed it that night, overriding Tzipporah’s insistence that the work could wait. As she drew water from the well, memories of her arrival in Midian came flooding back. She knelt on the ground, remembering Tzipporah bringing her water from that same well, her voice as soothing as the cool liquid. Tzipporah didn’t talk to her like that anymore. They discussed only chores that needed to be done and banalities of the day, nothing of real substance.

_What did I expect? I turned her down. Of course she speaks to me differently._

In Egypt, Miriam’s instincts from working under the overseer’s eye would have screamed at her not to dawdle. Here in Midian, her instincts told her to bury her face in the folds of the dress and breathe in Tzipporah’s smell.

She did not do that. But she lingered over the task, letting her mind wander. Unfortunately, her mind could wander only so far before it inevitably returned to Egypt. That stopped her from daydreaming about Tzipporah any further.

“Are you okay?” Keturah was holding the bowl out to her, brow furrowed with concern.

“I’m fine,” Miriam said.

“Keturah, look at my bowl!” Yiska interrupted. She held up a lump of clay and, in her eagerness, promptly dropped it.

Keturah sighed. “Give me that. I’ll fix it.”

“No, I can do it!”

“Fine. First you need to -”

Yiska pointed over Keturah’s shoulder. “Moses is here!”

Miriam turned to see her brother, clutching his shepherding staff and looking winded. Before she could ask why he wasn’t out with the sheep, he started talking.

“Traders from Egypt are here. Tzipporah is stalling, but they want to come into the camp and talk to Jethro. We have to hide.”

“All of us?” Miriam looked at Tzipporah’s sisters. The protectiveness that burned in her whenever anyone threatened Aaron flared up.

“Just you and me,” Moses said. “They didn’t recognize me, but they might if they looked for long enough. You look Hebrew. They’ll think you’re an escaped slave.”

“You should hide in our tent,” Keturah said. It was close by, and Miriam couldn’t think of a better option. She and Moses ducked into the tent. Not a moment too soon. They heard unfamiliar voices speaking Egyptian and Jethro answering. Then the voices moved away.

“How long do you think we should stay here?” Moses asked.

“Tzipporah will tell us when it’s safe. We’ll stay until then.”

Moses sat uneasily. He rocked from side to side, like he wanted to pace but was restraining himself. Miriam sat beside him and picked at the clay drying on her hands.

“How have you been?” Moses asked in a forced attempt at small talk.

She shrugged. “Well enough. And you?”

He shrugged back. “Fine. I’ve gotten better at shepherding. I helped Tzipporah chase off a jackal last week. She must have told you about that already.”

“No. We haven’t been talking much.”

“Why not?”

Miriam hesitated. Moses had been raised as an Egyptian, and Egyptians accepted those with an affinity for their own sex. But it was hard to confide in a brother she barely knew. She couldn’t predict him the way she predicted Aaron.

_He’s had enough secrets kept from him. I won’t keep this secret too. _

“She flirted with me, and I turned her down. It’s been different between us since then.”

“Oh. That explains why she’s been so solitary lately.”

“She has?”

“We take the sheep out to graze, then she wanders off by herself. She says she’s scouting, but Hobab and I both thought something was wrong.”

Miriam scratched a piece of clay off her wrist. It left grit under her fingernails.

“I didn’t mean to hurt her,” she said. “But I couldn’t say yes. I can’t stay in Midian.”

The tent flap rustled. Moses put his hand out as though to shield Miriam. When nothing entered but a stray breeze, they both relaxed.

“It’s been hard for me to adjust to life here,” he said. “I can’t imagine how much harder it is for you, knowing Aaron is back in Egypt.”

She nodded. A prickling in her throat made her swallow.

“Just being free is hard,” she admitted. “I dreamed of it for so long, but I didn’t imagine it happening like this.”

“What did you imagine it would be like?”

As children, Miriam and Aaron had played a game. It started with Miriam saying, “When I’m free…” and continued with the two of them trading fantasies back and forth. _I’ll spend a whole day sleeping. I’ll wear fine clothing and jewels. We’ll eat oilcakes with honey until we’re full and still have food left over. _

As they got older, the game lost its pleasure. Still, Moses’s question made Miriam remember those childhood dreams. She took a moment to collect herself before answering.

“I always imagined that Aaron would be with me. He wanted a family, but said there was no point marrying when Pharaoh could kill our children on a whim. I hoped he would marry after we were freed. I liked the idea of being an aunt.”

“What about children of your own?”

She shook her head. “I’m only interested in women.”

"You could adopt. People in the Egyptian court did that. I thought about it myself.”

“You did?”

Moses smiled. “I’m like Tzipporah. I like men and women. Seti said if I chose a man, he’d make sure I could adopt a child from a noble family.” His smile faded. “Knowing him, he would have threatened them to make them give up their child.”

“It wouldn’t be the first time he broke a family apart,” Miriam said.

Again, the specter of Aaron’s absence rose between them.

“Maybe Aaron will find someone,” Moses offered. “Maybe he’ll change his mind about starting a family.”

“He won’t. Not after last time.”

“What happened last time?”

Miriam’s throat hurt as she remembered the tears Aaron had refused to shed. She couldn’t answer right away.

“You don’t have to tell me-” Moses began.

“I can tell you.” Moses had changed. Not enough to carry out God’s mission, but enough for her to share this with him.

“There was a woman named Hadassah. She worked as a house slave for a noble family. She lived with them, but she came back to Goshen to visit her family whenever she got a chance. Once, her master came looking for her, so I hid her in our house. That was how she met Aaron.”

“What was she like?”

“Stubborn,” Miriam said, and even knowing how the story ended, she smiled. “Even more stubborn than Aaron. No matter how much work she was given, she found time to come talk to him. Eventually, she said she wanted to marry him.”

“Aaron didn’t feel the same way?”

“He did. He stuttered even more than normal around her. But he was afraid of what marrying her would mean. House slaves were treated better than the other slaves, and her master didn’t hit her often, but after our parents died, Aaron didn’t want to risk losing anyone else. I had to go to Hadassah’s father myself to discuss the match.”

“Then what happened?” Moses spoke with trepidation. No doubt he remembered that during that night at the well, only Miriam had stood beside Aaron.

“Her master got drunk one night and pushed her down the stairs. He broke her neck.”

Burials in Goshen were hasty affairs. No one had time or energy for an elaborate funeral. Even so, looking at the unnatural angle of Hadassah’s head in the grave, Aaron had climbed down into it with her. He had gently rearranged her corpse and laid stones over her staring eyes to hold them closed. Then he had climbed back up and stood silently beside Miriam while Hadassah’s father recited prayers.

Years had passed since then, yet tears rose to Miriam’s eyes as thickly as they had at the graveside. Moses put an arm around her shoulders. Some stiffness remained in the gesture, but there was more comfort than awkwardness. Miriam had always found it oddly comforting to cry in the presence of someone she loved.

When the tears ceased, Moses kept his arm around her. They stayed like that until Tzipporah entered the tent and told them the traders had gone.

“They only wanted to buy pottery. They took forever to haggle over prices. If we didn’t need the medicines they brought, I’d have sent them on their way with a kick to the - what’s wrong?” She had noticed the tear streaks on Miriam’s face. She glared at Moses.

“We were talking,” Miriam said. “I remembered something from Egypt.”

Moses drew his arm away and stood. “Should we get back to the sheep?” he asked.

“Yes. I just hope Hobab hasn’t let them wander too far.” Tzipporah lingered in the tent, looking at Miriam. Then she shook her head and followed after Moses.

Miriam returned to the pottery site. Her bowl had dried out, making it impossible to repair.

“That’s all right,” Keturah assured her. “You can always start over.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two of the things mentioned in the “When I’m free” game are references to later events in the Torah. The “fine clothing and jewels” refer to the garments Aaron will wear as God’s high priest (Exodus 28) and the “oilcakes with honey” are a reference to manna, which is variously compared to cakes made with oil (Numbers 11:8) and honey (Exodus 16:31).
> 
> It’s hard to generalize about attitudes towards queer people in Ancient Egypt, but some degree of acceptance is plausible. Check out History Is Gay’s podcast episode “3 Genders? In Ancient Egypt? It’s More Likely Than You Think” for more information.


	19. Chapter 19

Traders did not often come to Midian. There were other, richer tribes to sell to and besides, Midianites never bought slaves. Egyptian traders called Midianites stingy and difficult, a reputation that Tzipporah was quite proud of.

On the rare occasion that traders did arrive, Miriam and Moses took refuge in a tent. Tzipporah doubted anyone would recognize Moses the bearded shepherd as Moses, Egypt’s lost prince, but the risk was too great to take. As for Miriam, the thought of an Egyptian recognizing her as a Hebrew and demanding the return of his “property” made her seethe with rage.

Over a year had passed since Miriam’s arrival. She and Moses had begun spending more time together. Miriam worked harder and laughed less than others in the tribe, but she smiled at her brother’s jokes. She still slept badly, but most nights she chose to stargaze by herself. Tzipporah couldn’t help waking when she heard Miriam leave the tent, but if Miriam made no effort to rouse her, then Tzipporah left her alone.

Tzipporah snapped out of her reverie long enough to nudge a wayward lamb back into the flock. She was driving the sheep back to camp for the day. Normally, Hobab or Moses would have accompanied her, but she had told them she wanted a day to herself, and they had obliged.

By now, both of them knew about her failed flirtation with Miriam. They pulled pranks and told exaggerated stories in a transparent effort to cheer Tzipporah up. She didn’t need cheering up. She was fine. She’d made an offer. Miriam had turned her down. That was that. There were plenty of lovely women and handsome men in the tribe. She wasn’t going to waste time pursuing someone who wasn’t interested. Even if that someone had a beautiful singing voice, and small strong hands, and eyes that sparkled like sunlight in water…

Tzipporah groaned and shook her head. On days like these, she envied the sheep. They couldn’t hold a thought in their heads for more than a few seconds, and they only managed that if the thought was “food.” A sheep wouldn’t spend hours fantasizing about winning a lover over with grand romantic gestures. Sheep didn’t even know what romance was.

They reached the watering trough which, to Tzipporah’s surprise, was already full. She glanced towards the well, expecting to see her sisters. Instead, she saw Miriam.

_What a difference from the first time we met at this well._

Then, Miriam had worn a torn, faded dress. Her eyes had been dull with pain. Now she wore a clean new dress, and her bright eyes shone as she approached. Her hair, which she normally kept tied back, hung around her face in soft waves. She greeted Tzipporah, who gave an automatic response while trying not to think about burying her hands in those gorgeous curls.

“I was helping Naomi prepare medicines, but she says I work too fast. She sent me out and suggested I help you instead,” Miriam explained.

“I appreciate it,” Tzipporah said and then, because that sounded too sincere, she added, “The sheep do too.”

Even with Miriam’s rejection lurking between them, Tzipporah found it easy to fall into conversation with her. She loved the way Miriam gestured to punctuate her sentences.

“Naomi says I give out medicines too freely and that’s why we ran out. I told her medicine doesn’t do any good unless it’s used. Besides, Moses mentioned willow trees at one of the sheep grazing sites, and I can prepare more from willow bark. We don’t need to rely on what traders bring. I just need to remind him to gather some next time -” She stopped, her eyes settling on a point over Tzipporah’s shoulder. The air was hazy with dust, so when Tzipporah turned, she did not immediately understand what Miriam had seen. Then she realized: traders. Egyptian traders, by the style of their clothing. They were drawing quickly closer. She had been so focused on Miriam, she hadn’t heard the grunts of their camels.

“You should go to the tents,” Tzipporah said.

“They must have seen me already.”

“They haven’t gotten a good look at you. If they get closer, they’ll know you’re Hebrew.”

“I can’t leave you alone with them. They’re slavers.”

Sure enough, Tzipporah realized, two people followed the camels on foot. Long ropes bound their hands to the saddles.

A rider broke off from the group. His camel galloped towards them faster than a human could run. Tzipporah knew. She’d tried to outrun a slaver’s camel before. She gripped her herding staff with both hands, holding it in front of her. The sheep moved aside to let the camel through. The rider pulled his mount to a halt. He stopped so close, Tzipporah could smell the stink of sweat on him.

“We need water,” he said tersely. “Draw up buckets for me and my men.”

The laws of hospitality said that you never refused a traveler’s request for water. The laws of common sense said that you never refused an order from an Egyptian with a sword at his side. Tzipporah kept her eyes on the Egyptian as she walked to the well. As she drew up a bucket, the Egyptian beckoned for Miriam to come closer. Tzipporah watched his hands.

_If he tries to grab her, I’ll attack. I don’t care how many slavers there are. They won’t take her._

But the Egyptian merely handed Miriam a pair of canteens and told her to fill them.

The Egyptian’s camel drank deeply from the trough while they filled the canteens and gave the man water to splash over his face. Tzipporah didn’t begrudge the water for the camel. The animals’ hump was sunken from lack of food and its coat was filthy. The Egyptian was in similarly bad shape: lips cracked, dirt caked onto his clothes. He moved his left arm stiffly, as though it had been recently injured. Any pity she might have felt for him vanished as the other slavers came near enough to dismount, dragging the slaves with them.

The two slaves huddled together. One was a boy of perhaps seven years, and the other a woman with a bruised face. She looked very like the boy. As the slavers passed around the water bucket, the boy reached for it. The woman pulled his hand back.

The slavers relaxed as they drank. They chatted amongst themselves, oblivious to the two pairs of eyes watching every drop of water that fell.

“Our thanks,” one slaver said, raising his canteen in an approximation of a toast. “We’ve had a difficult journey. My name is Atum, by the way.” He was clearly the youngest of the group. The fuzz of a teenage beard grew patchily on his chin.

“I’m Tzipporah, daughter of the High Priest of Midian,” Tzipporah said.

Atum nodded respectfully and turned to Miriam. “And your name?”

“Miriam bat Amram v’Yocheved,” Miriam said. Atum stood a head taller than her, but she stared into his eyes like an equal.

“That’s a Hebrew name, isn’t it?”

“Yes. I’m a freed slave.”

The lead slaver had remained on his camel. He yanked on the reins, pulling the animal away from the water trough, and drove it closer to Miriam.

“How do we know you’re not a runaway?” he asked.

Tzipporah stepped between him and Miriam. “She was freed. I’ll vouch for her. Unless you’d rather take it up with my father.”

The man sneered. “You think I’d be afraid of some desert chieftain?”

“I think you shouldn’t threaten the people who gave you water.”

The leader ran his eyes over Miriam. Tzipporah gripped her staff tighter. She remembered the way the buyers at the slave market had looked at her.

He made a dismissive sound and turned the camel away. “She’s too small to be worth much anyways.”

Tzipporah released the breath she’d been holding. She felt light-headed. Miriam placed a hand on her shoulder. Her touch strengthened Tzipporah, but it was gone far too quickly. Miriam moved past her. She indicated the slaves and said to Atum, “Let me give them water too.”

Atum called to the lead slaver, “Should we water the slaves, sir?”

The leader asked whether the other slavers had drunk their fill. Only after hearing their affirmation did he allow Miriam to take the bucket to the two captives.

“It’s a shame you’re not willing to sell her,” another slaver remarked to Tzipporah. “She’s quite pretty. I know people who’d pay well for her.”

Tzipporah adjusted her hold on her staff. She imagined using it to smash the Egyptian’s teeth out. If she struck fast, she could subdue him. But if she attacked, the others would be upon her in seconds. Her staff would be useless against swords.

“We don’t sell our friends here,” she said.

The leader interrupted. “Don’t get too comfortable, men. As soon as the slaves have been watered, we’re moving out. We’ll go to Moab and get more slaves there. We have to make this expedition worth something.”

Atum muttered to Tzipporah, “We raided a tribe, but they fought back and we only got four slaves. Two died on the way here. He’s been in a bad mood since. Worst expedition I’ve ever been on.”

“Must have been hard for you,” Tzipporah said. Atum missed her sarcasm.

Miriam knelt beside the slave woman. Tzipporah couldn’t hear what they were saying, but saw the woman nod. Miriam stood and walked to the lead slaver.

“How much for them?” she asked.

“More than you can afford,” he said.

“What about just for the child?”

“Even a child is worth good money. Unless you can offer a better deal than the overseers, he’s not for sale.”

Miriam looked to Tzipporah, her eyes pleading. “We could trade some of the sheep,” she said.

“We sell slaves, not sheep.” The leader wheeled his camel towards the slaves. They scrambled to their feet.

“Let’s go,” he said. The Egyptians grumbled but mounted their camels. Within minutes, they vanished back into the desert’s haze.

Miriam stared after them. Tzipporah touched her shoulder. “Are you all right?” she asked.

Miriam shook her head. She looked dazed. “They’ll hurt the child,” she said. “They’ll force themselves on her.”

“No. They’ll leave her untouched for her new master. They’ll get a better price that way,” Tzipporah said.

Miriam fidgeted with her bracelet, then stopped. A look of pain crossed her face, as though the metal had burned her. “I could have traded this for them,” she said.

“You heard the Egyptian. He wasn’t selling to us for any price.”

Miriam still watched the retreating dust cloud.

“What did you say to her?” Tzipporah asked.

Miriam tore her eyes away. “I said I’d help her. She asked me to buy her son’s freedom. I told her that if I couldn’t, when she got to Egypt, she should go to Aaron for help. I told her to be strong, because freedom is coming.”

A comment about giving people false hope tickled the tip of Tzipporah’s tongue. She decided against uttering it. “You did everything you could,” she said. “At least you’re safe. I was afraid they’d try to take you.”

“I wasn’t afraid. I knew you wouldn’t let them.”

A blush heated Tzipporah’s face. She would have fought a hundred slavers to see Miriam’s expression of pure, unhesitating trust.

Distantly, a sheep bleated. Too distantly. In all the commotion, they had scattered.

“I need to round up the sheep,” Tzipporah said vaguely.

“Can I help?”

“No, I’ll do it. You get back to the camp. Let my father know what happened.”

Miriam went, though not without a glance back.

_Is she looking at me? Or is she looking at the slavers’ trail?_

It didn’t matter, Tzipporah reminded herself as she herded the straggling sheep back together. All that mattered was that Miriam was safe.


	20. Chapter 20

The slave graveyard wasn’t much to look at. Nothing grew in the sandy soil, which was why the Egyptians had been willing to give the land to the Hebrews. Simple stones marked each grave. Some stones had elaborate inscriptions on them, but most had only a name. Many stones, Aaron knew, guarded empty graves. The crocodiles had eaten the little bodies thrown into the river over twenty years ago, leaving nothing to bury. Parents who wanted a place to mourn their children’s deaths had dug symbolic graves, placing a toy or blanket inside. On the anniversary of the massacre, they returned to place pebbles on top.

Aaron had already added stones to the graves of Hadassah, her father, and his own parents. He wasn’t marking an anniversary. It was just a habit he had developed from his visits to the graveyard.

Next to Yocheved’s grave was a grave for Moses. Aaron didn’t remember the “funeral” they had held, a necessary cover to hide the fact that Moses had survived.

_I bet Miriam remembers it. She has a good memory. _Had _a good memory._

Wind stirred the sand, flinging grit into his eyes. He blinked and rubbed them. Nearly two years, and he still couldn’t bring himself to make a grave for Miriam. He knew she was dead. She had to be. She’d gone to the palace and never come back. He’d managed to speak to a palace slave, who confirmed that Miriam had spoken to Pharaoh but had no idea what happened after that. The knowledge did nothing to comfort Aaron. If Miriam had backed down and not gone to the palace, he could imagine that she had escaped. But she had gone. Which meant Pharaoh had killed her.

_I should have gone with her. _

No, he shouldn’t have. He was alive because he hadn’t gone. Miriam had wanted him to live. As long as he stayed alive, he hadn’t completely failed her.

“Aaron!”

The voice startled him. Evening stained the sky purple, and in the fading light he had to squint to make out the two figures approaching. One he recognized as Elisheva, Nahshon’s sister. She had long, shining hair and full lips. A scar on her jaw pulled her mouth to one side, making her smile crooked. She cleaned the scribes’ rooms and so avoided the cruelty of the worksite overseers. But no slave’s life was completely free of violence.

She and Nahshon had supported Aaron after Miriam disappeared. They made food for him when he couldn’t bring himself to eat and once, in Elisheva’s case, provided a literal shoulder to cry on. The memory embarrassed him, but Elisheva was tactful and had never brought it up. He didn’t recognize the woman with her. A Moabite or Midianite, maybe.

“We went to your house but you weren’t there. I thought we’d find you here instead,” Elisheva said.

_Have I become that predictable? _

“Well, you found me,” he said.

Elisheva indicated the woman beside her. “This is Tamar. She’s a palace slave who came looking for you.”

“For me? Why?”

Elisheva put a hand on Tamar’s shoulder. “Tell him what you told me,” she urged.

Tamar had sad, tired eyes, but she stood straight and said, “I spoke to your sister Miriam.”

Aaron felt like he’d been punched in the gut, all the air gone out of him. A strangled “How…?” was all he could force out.

“The slavers who captured me stopped in Midian. A woman there gave me water and talked to me. She said her name was Miriam, that she had a brother named Aaron in Egypt, and that I could go to him -to you, that is - for help.”

It couldn’t be a joke. Elisheva wouldn’t do that to him. Still, he pressed for more information.

“Did she give her full name? What else did she say?”

“Miriam bat Amram v’Yocheved, she said. We didn’t have much time to talk. There was one other thing she said, but it was odd…”

“What was it?”

“She said freedom was coming soon. God had chosen His deliverer. I’m not sure what she meant by it. I think she was trying to comfort me.”

Aaron’s doubts vanished. Only Miriam would make a promise like that.

“What was she doing in Midian?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t ask her.”

“She must have escaped from Pharaoh,” Elisheva said. “I remember how brave she was. If anyone could escape, she could.”

Aaron had spent long, agonizing months reconciling himself to his sister’s death. Now, abruptly, she was alive again. Everything seemed muffled, distorted, like sound underwater. He didn’t dare open his mouth to speak, for fear of drowning.

“You should send Miriam a message,” Elisheva prompted. “She must be worried about you.”

“How am I supposed to do that?”

Tamar spoke up. “One of the slavers who brought me here was named Atum. He was kinder than the others. He’d take a message for you, I think, and I know they’ll pass through Midian again on their next expedition. They talked about it on the journey here.”

Aaron shook his head. “I can’t tell an Egyptian about her. If I could write a message down, maybe. Egyptians can’t read Hebrew. But I don’t have ink or papyrus.”

Elisheva said, “I clean the scribes' rooms, remember? I can get you whatever you need.”

“If they catch you stealing -”

“It’s not stealing if they’ve thrown it out.” Elisheva’s eyes held a glint as hard as obsidian. If she had been a little taller and if her face hadn’t been scarred, that look would have reminded Aaron of Hadassah.

He pushed back the memory and said, “Only take things they’ve thrown away. Don’t put yourself in danger for me.”

“I’ll be careful,” Elisheva promised.

Aaron rubbed a hand over his face. He didn’t feel like he was underwater anymore. More like he had broken the surface and risen gasping into the light.

“We should get back,” he said. “Tamar, you said you needed my help?"

She nodded. “I need to find my son. He was captured with me, but the slavers split us up when we got to Egypt. They sold him to the worksite overseers, and they sold me to a nobleman.” Her tone became subdued with the last few words. Aaron didn’t need to ask what the noble had bought her for.

_Miriam would know how to comfort her._

Aaron didn’t have that knack, so instead he said, “What does your son look like? I can ask around. Someone must have seen him.”

Tamar described him as they walked away from the graveyard. Aaron listened and promised, trying to mimic the warm, reassuring tone that Miriam used for people in pain. He felt his heart beating, and each beat sounded like an answered prayer.

_She’s alive. She’s alive. She’s alive._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Placing pebbles on graves is a Jewish custom, though I'm not sure that it would have been a custom this far back in history.
> 
> Elisheva and Nahshon are both from the Torah. Nahshon in particular is associated with some excellent midrashic stories, and I've long thought that adaptations of the Book of Exodus should include him.


	21. Chapter 21

A shooting star flashed across the sky. Miriam watched it arc in the direction of Egypt and vanish. She heard the tent flap open behind her.

“You’ve been out here for a while,” Tzipporah said.

Miriam didn’t turn around. “I’m not ready to sleep yet,” she said.

“You’ve stayed up late every night for the last month. I’m worried about you.”

“I’m worried about _them_,” Miriam retorted.

Tzipporah sat beside her. Miriam waited for her to restart the conversation they had held and dropped more times than she could count: _“You couldn’t have saved those slaves.” “You don’t know that.” “The Egyptians would have killed you.” “Not with God protecting me.” _

Instead, Tzipporah said, “I’ll stay up with you.”

“You don’t have to.”

“I want to. I haven’t taught you all the constellations yet.” Tzipporah pointed to three stars clustered together in a line. “That one is the Crown of Asherah. It -”

“I want to be alone,” Miriam said.

Tzipporah’s throat moved, as though she was swallowing the words she wanted to say. At last she said, “When you change your mind, I’ll be here.” She placed her hand over Miriam’s for a moment, then returned to the tent.

Miriam ran her thumb over the place Tzipporah’s hand had touched. Her heart stirred with a feeling she couldn’t name. She knew what love felt like. Her love for her brothers was a fierce, desperate force, flowing through her veins like their shared blood. Her love for God was an unyielding blaze, like a fire that burned without consuming.

The thing she felt for Tzipporah was different. Even the most trivial of details made Miriam catch her breath: the particular way Tzipporah adjusted her dress after saying something clever, the smugness in her slurred voice after winning a drinking contest against Hobab, the stubborn slant of her mouth as she coaxed a sickly lamb to nurse.

Was it love that made her notice these things? Was it love that made her want to call Tzipporah back? The yearning to listen to Tzipporah naming every star in the sky - was that love?

She stared at the stars Tzipporah had indicated. What had she called it? The Crown of Asherah? Odd. Asherah was a pagan goddess.

“_Adonai echad_,” Miriam whispered. _God is one_. One God, one people, one destiny to fulfill. She could not afford to be distracted from that destiny. Not even by Tzipporah.

* * *

A new moon came and went, yet Miriam’s sleeplessness continued. During one shabbat celebration, she sat on a blanket near the fire, too tired to dance but too restless to sleep. She watched Tzipporah pull another woman - Tirzah, that was her name - into a dance. 

Naomi sat beside her and said with no attempt at small talk, “You look exhausted. Go get an early night’s sleep.”

“Not yet,” Miriam said.

“Why not?”

Miriam didn’t answer, but Naomi followed the line of her sight. The two of them watched Tirzah laugh at something Tzipporah said. 

“Ah,” Naomi said. “Still lovesick, I see.”

“I’m not lovesick.”

“Really? Because I was just thinking Tirzah would be a good match for Tzipporah. Maybe I’ll suggest it to Jethro. I’m not yet too senile to arrange a marriage.”

“No!” The word burst from Miriam like water bursting through a dam. 

Naomi smirked. “Why not? Did you have someone else in mind for Tzipporah?”

Miriam twisted the bracelet on her wrist. With great effort, she forced herself to say, “No.”

“Don’t be coy. You’d be a perfectly good match for her.”

Miriam shook her head. She felt dizzy, which she blamed on lack of sleep and the heat of the fire.

“Tzipporah already made an offer. I turned her down.”

“What did you do that for?” Naomi asked. “You’ve got a perfectly good donkey for a dowry, and her father isn’t going to say no if you ask.”

“I can’t marry her. I can’t stay in Midian forever. I have to go back to Egypt and free my people.”

“Hmm.” Naomi settled more comfortably into her seat. “Well, I don’t see why that should stop you. If you want a companion on a fool’s errand, you couldn’t ask for a better one than Tzipporah.”

“It’s not a fool’s errand,” Miriam insisted. “And I can’t ask her to leave her family. When I go to Egypt, I won’t be coming back here.”

“You’re really planning to take your people all the way to the Promised Land?”

“Yes, I am.” The conversation reminded Miriam of the many arguments she’d had with Aaron over the same subject. Unfortunately, her older sister tone didn’t work on Naomi.

“What’s stopping you from going now?” Naomi asked.

“I need to convince Moses to come with me. He isn’t ready yet.”

“You sure you’re not staying because of-”

“No, I’m not.” Miriam glared at Naomi, daring her to argue.

Naomi sighed dramatically. “If you say so,” she said.

Tirzah and Tzipporah continued to dance. The cool blue-green fabric of Tzipporah’s dress rippled like water. Miriam had always been drawn to water.

Naomi leaned closer and said conspiratorially, “You know, the hills around here are riddled with caves. Young people sneak up there for trysts. Mind, you didn’t hear that from me. I don’t approve of fooling around before marriage.”

“Then why are you telling me?”

“Because I’m sick of watching you pine. Maybe you won’t be so listless after you’ve taken a girl up there. Any girl, if you won’t have Tzipporah.”

“I don’t want any other girl,” Miriam said.

“Then you’d better take her up there before someone else does.” Naomi stood and stretched. “Well, I’m too old to stay up any later.” She patted Miriam’s shoulder and added, “Think about what I said.”

Miriam considered several sarcastic replies, but uttered none of them, because God had commanded respect for the elderly. Anyways, perhaps Naomi _ was _ going senile. It could only be foolishness, to suggest sneaking off with Tzipporah to the hill caves. Pure nonsense, to imagine Tzipporah’s lips on hers. Madness, to think of lying under Tzipporah, of being caressed by her soft hands…

Tzipporah cast a glance towards Miriam. Her lips were parted in a fading laugh. Firelight glittered on her jewelry, casting points of light over her dark skin, like stars in the night sky.

Miriam scrambled to her feet. She turned her back to the fire, said to no one in particular, “I’m going to sleep,” and left.

The tent lay empty save for Miriam. Tzipporah’s sisters were still at the dance. For now, she had privacy.

_ There’s no privacy from God. He knows what I’m thinking _.

She reached under her dress to touch her back. The scarred skin under her fingertips had no sensation. The whip had cut too deeply. She wondered if the wounds would ever fully heal. They always had before, but that had been in Egypt. Things were different in Midian.

_ Would I feel it if Tzipporah touched me? _

She lay down, closed her eyes, and prayed that she wouldn’t dream of Tzipporah.

God answered her prayer. Instead of Tzipporah, she dreamed of Egypt. She dreamed of her father’s calloused hands ruffling her hair, except when she looked up at him, she saw Pharaoh instead. She stumbled backwards and slipped in the Nile’s mud -or was it mud? It was red, too red, and it smelled of rotting meat. She heard a baby crying. She tried to run, fell again, staggered to her feet with the taste of iron in her mouth. She ran for home, but when she reached the doorway, she saw someone already standing there. The woman with the torn dress -no. The slave woman, the one who had passed through Midian.

The woman didn’t look at Miriam with anger or betrayal. She stared through her with the glazed, lifeless eyes of someone who had never expected to be saved.

“I’m sorry,” Miriam said. “I’ll find you. I can still help you.”

The woman looked up. Miriam followed her gaze to see a bird descending. Its back sparkled with iridescent blue and its stomach glowed ruddy orange. 

_ A kingfisher. Didn’t I dream of a kingfisher before? _

The bird flew lower, seized Miriam’s sleeve in its beak, and tugged.

“Let go,” she said. The kingfisher pulled harder.

“Let go of me!”

The dream shattered. She awoke panting and disoriented, shivering with cold sweat. Tzipporah’s voice cut through her panic.

“I’m here, I’m here. You’re safe. You were dreaming, but it’s all right. I’m here.” Tzipporah’s hand held her sleeve.

“You were thrashing in your sleep,” Tzipporah explained. “I was worried you might hurt yourself.” She let go.

Miriam needed several uneven breaths before she could manage to say, “Thank you.”

“Do you want to go outside?” 

Miriam nodded. “Come with me?” she asked.

“Of course.”

Cold shivers still trickled over Miriam’s skin as she sat beside Tzipporah. She rested her head on Tzipporah’s shoulder to soak in her steady, reassuring warmth.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Tzipporah asked.

“It was the usual sort of dream.” Not wanting to reveal any more than that, she asked, “Can you tell me the constellations now?”

Tzipporah did. Her words banished the last remnants of the nightmare. Miriam listened and wished this moment could last forever. It couldn’t, of course. She knew that as surely as she knew what she had to do. 

It was time to return to Egypt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Crown of Asherah is the constellation of Orion’s Belt. This constellation is actually visible in The Prince of Egypt during the killing of Egypt’s firstborn scene. However, ancient Egyptians saw the constellation as a representation of their god Osiris. Although Asherah was the name of a goddess worshipped in parts of the Near East, the idea that this constellation was named for her is a wholly fictional invention of mine.


	22. Chapter 22

The shifting of blankets woke Tzipporah. She lay still, listening. She could identify by sound alone whether it was Miriam or one of her sisters who had awoken. Ephorah, for example, walked with light rapid steps. Yiska breathed loudly and made even more noise untying the tent flap.

Slow, cautious footsteps paced over the ground. The tent flap made hardly a whisper of sound.

_Miriam. _

Miriam hadn’t tried to wake her. That meant she wanted to be left alone. Tzipporah rolled over and tried to return to sleep. Sleep evaded her. She tossed and turned and argued with herself. Miriam had wanted her there after that last nightmare, hadn’t she? What if she had gone outside because of another nightmare?

_I should check on her. Ask her what she wants._

Tzipporah rose and went outside. Miriam was not there.

A line of footprints traced a path through the tents. Tzipporah followed it. The trail led her first to the well, where a splash of wet sand confirmed that Miriam had drawn up a bucket, then to the paddock where the handful of non-sheep livestock stayed at night. The camels grunted at her as she opened the gate and stepped inside. Her camel leaned down to nibble her hair. She pushed it away, wondering for the hundredth time what had gone wrong in the camel’s life to give it a taste for human hair.

By now, her eyes had adjusted to the moonlit night. She could see that Miriam’s donkey was missing.

_She did it. She went back. _

Her camel nuzzled her again. She ordered it to lay down. With a groan, it obeyed. She climbed on, and the camel stood. It was risky to ride with no saddle or reins, Tzipporah knew. Even the best camels could be difficult to control, and hers was far from the best. But there was no time to go back and get the camel’s tack. Every second lost was another second in which Miriam moved farther away.

She wasn’t in the habit of talking to her animals, but she patted the camel’s neck and said, “We’re going to find Miriam. If you throw me off, I will sell you to the Moabites as a sacrifice for Baal. Understood?”

The camel turned its head, stared at her, and opened its mouth in a wide, stinking yawn.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” she said. “Let’s go.”

* * *

Tzipporah took the straightest route towards Egypt, navigating by the stars. To her right, mountains loomed. On every other side, the desert stretched, wide and empty. Night leached all color from the land, leaving a vista of muted silvers and pale grays, broken only by the black of the mountains’ shadows.

Periodically she stopped the camel, dismounted, and searched for tracks. No wind disturbed the sand, and no clouds blocked the bright moon. She followed the trail, noting where it wandered.

_Thank God Miriam doesn’t know how to follow the stars. _

Somewhere in the distance, a wolf howled. Tzipporah tightened her grip on the camel. Wolves rarely attacked people, but Miriam was small and weaponless and alone.

_She has the donkey. Wolves know better than to attack donkeys_.

Even so, there were too many dangerous things in the desert. Scorpions. Snakes. Quicksand. Worst of all, slave traders.

“God,” she said, and faltered. Despite being the high priest’s daughter, she’d never been good at praying. She could run through the rote prayers, but spontaneous, genuine conversation with God required faith that Tzipporah did not have.

“Keep her safe,” she said at last. “Maybe You have a plan for her. Fine. But hurting her can’t be part of that plan.”

She squinted at the horizon. Something moved along it. Something the size and shape of a donkey with a rider.

She urged the camel into a gallop. The camel obliged, forcing her to cling to its neck. Riding a walking camel bareback was like balancing on a three-wheeled cart. Riding a running camel bareback was like balancing on a three-wheeled cart as it hurtled down a steep hill.

Somehow, she managed to keep her hold on the camel and wheel it around it in front of the donkey. The donkey halted. The camel snorted and lowered its head towards the smaller animal.

Tzipporah straightened up. She and Miriam stared at each other. The chase had given Tzipporah plenty of time to think of clever one-liners.

“It’s a little late for a ride,” she said.

Miriam didn’t even smile. “I’m leaving,” she said.

“Why now?”

“Because I’ve become too attached to this place. I keep finding reasons to stay, and I can’t stay.”

“Are you afraid of becoming too attached to Midian or too attached to me?” She hated the way Miriam flinched. At the same time, she couldn’t help a certain feeling of satisfaction.

_I was right. I wasn’t imagining the way she looked at me when I danced with Tirzah._

“It doesn’t matter,” Miriam said.

“It matters to me.”

Miriam took a deep breath. “If things were different,” she said. “Perhaps we could be together. But you have a home here in Midian. I don’t.”

“You could have a home here,” Tzipporah said. “People like you. Even Naomi likes you, and she doesn’t like anyone. And Moses is here.”

“Aaron isn’t.” Miriam’s voice became softer, almost pleading. “Imagine if your sisters were enslaved in Egypt. Wouldn’t you go back for them?”

Tzipporah couldn’t lie to Miriam. The truth showed in her expression.

Miriam nodded, as though she had spoken. “That’s why I have to go.”

Tzipporah tried again. “You said you wouldn’t leave until God told you it was time. Did He speak to you again?”

Miriam bit her lip, hesitating. “No,” she admitted.

“Then maybe it isn’t time yet.”

“Why do you want me to stay?” The pleading turned to frustration. “You have your family. You have Tirzah. Why can’t you be happy with them?”

“I only danced with Tirzah to see if you would get jealous!”

A heavy pause followed her outburst. “It worked,” Miriam said, finally. “I was jealous. Jealousy isn’t enough reason for me to stay.”

“Then don’t stay for me,” Tzipporah said. “Stay because there’s a death sentence on your head back in Egypt. Or have you forgotten about that?”

“God will protect me.”

“You can’t rely on God all the time.”

“I can and I will. He’s kept me alive this far.” She lifted her head. “I have to leave. Please, don’t try to stop me.”

Tzipporah took a deep breath, letting the night’s cool air calm her. What would her father do? He always knew the right thing to say. Maybe he’d talk about the unknowability of God and looking at one’s life through heaven’s eyes. Tzipporah wasn’t devout enough to pull off something like that. Not devout enough to God, anyways…

“I won’t stop you from going,” she said. “As long as you let me show you something first.”

Miriam frowned.

“It’s nearby, in one of the mountain caves.” Tzipporah gestured to the sandstone mountains.

“Naomi told me about the caves,” Miriam said. “She said young people use them for trysts.”

“I’m not asking for anything like that,” Tzipporah said, though hearing Miriam say “trysts” made her ache with longing. “I want to show you something that’s important to me.”

Miriam sighed, and some of the tension drained from her shoulders. “You can show me,” she said. “Afterwards, I’m leaving.”


	23. Chapter 23

They left the animals tethered to a shrub at the base of the mountains. Tzipporah helped Miriam scramble up the steep path until they reached the cave. It was large enough for two people to stand inside easily, and brilliantly lit by the night sky. An earthquake had cracked a hole through the top of the cave long ago. Moonlight spilled down, illuminating Miriam’s widening eyes.

In the center stood a cedarwood pole. The bark had been stripped, but no carvings decorated its smooth surface. A ribbon dangled from the top of the pole. Tzipporah thought the ribbon had been blue once, but time had faded it to gray. She remembered her mother winding it around the pole, remembered her stories of the goddess it was dedicated to, but could not picture the original color.

“Do you know what this is?” she asked.

“It’s an Asherah pole.” Miriam took a step back. “You’re the daughter of a High Priest of Elohim.” Her tone held accusation. Not much, but enough to sting Tzipporah’s pride.

“I’m also the daughter of a follower of Asherah.” Tzipporah walked to the other side of the cave and stood there, facing Miriam with her arms crossed. “My mother’s tribe worshipped Asherah,” she said. “My father didn’t ask her to convert when they married, but they agreed she couldn’t openly worship a different god. It would cause too much tension here in Midian. We’re very clear about having only one God.” She tried for a wry smile, but received no response from Miriam. She went on, “My mother set up the sacred pole herself so she could have a place to pray. Not that she prayed much, but she wanted to keep some connection to her original people.”

“Did you pray to Asherah with her?” Miriam hadn’t moved from the cave’s entrance.

“Would it bother you if I had?”

Miriam took longer than Tzipporah would have liked to answer.

“In Egypt, they often put us to work building temples to their gods,” she said. “For me, other gods represent pain.”

“I can understand that,” Tzipporah said. She remembered the towering statues of animal-headed gods, so massive it was hard to believe they had been carved by human hands. “But Asherah isn’t an Egyptian god.”

Miriam fidgeted with her bracelet.

“We can go somewhere else,” Tzipporah said. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have brought you here.” She’d known this was a possibility, and she couldn’t fault Miriam’s reasons, but the rejection hurt all the same.

_How many times is she going to reject me before I learn my lesson? _

“No, I - _I’m_ sorry.” Miriam crossed the cave to Tzipporah’s side. “I’ve been here for two years, and there are still things that matter to you that I don’t know about. I never thought to ask how you worshipped.”

“There are things I don’t know about you too,” Tzipporah pointed out. “Like how you know about Asherah.”

“Some of the slaves in Egypt worshipped her. Not all of us are Hebrew.”

Tzipporah wondered how long it would be before Miriam stopped referring to the Egyptian slaves as “us.”

“Was there any tension between them and your people?” she asked.

“No, not really. We lived in different parts of Goshen and we didn’t intermarry with them, but that was all.”

“I’m sure having a common enemy helped,” Tzipporah said. This time, Miriam did smile, if only just barely. She sat down, and Tzipporah sat next to her.

“So, you came here to worship Asherah?” Miriam asked.

“I came here with my mother, but I didn’t worship. I only prayed to Asherah once.”

“When was that?”

“When the slavers captured me.” Tzipporah took a breath so deep it hurt. “They kept talking about what they wanted to do to me. Their leader wouldn’t let them rape me or the other woman they’d captured. He said if they hurt us, it would lower our value at the market. But he didn’t stop them from talking. I was afraid. I’ve faced bandits and wolves, and I’ve never been that afraid before. I prayed to God, asking Him to help me escape. He didn’t.”

Miriam placed her hand over Tzipporah’s. Tzipporah could have sworn she felt strength flowing through their shared touch.

“I thought maybe a goddess would understand. I started praying to Asherah for help. She didn’t answer either. I realized no one was going to save me. I’d have to save myself.”

“God heard you.” Miriam said it gently. “He gave you the chance to free yourself, with Moses’s help.”

This was the angle Tzipporah had been aiming for.

“Maybe so, but I didn’t know that at the time,” she said. “My capture led to Moses learning the truth about his past. It brought all three of us here. It seems like part of some divine plan now, but it didn’t then. This could be the same for you.”

“Maybe God wants me to stay here, you mean?”

“I wouldn’t presume to speak for God,” Tzipporah said. “But you have to admit it’s possible.”

“You’re not saying all this just to convince me to stay?”

“I _am_ trying to convince you to stay,” Tzipporah said. “I said I wouldn’t stop you, and that’s true. I never said anything about not trying to persuade you.”

Miriam laced her fingers through Tzipporah’s. “Do you know what’s strange?” she said. “For most of my life, people left when I wanted them to stay. My father left my mother. Moses left our family. Now I’m the one who wants to leave.”

“Do you want to? Or do you feel like you have to?”

“I don’t know what else I can do, except go back. If I keep waiting for a sign, I might never go.” She tilted her head up to look at Tzipporah. “Naomi suggested you could come back with me. I didn’t think you would want to, but if you did…”

Tzipporah squeezed her hand. “It sounds nice, doesn’t it?” she said. “The two of us traveling together. I used to imagine journeying like the nomad tribes, seeing incredible cities and meeting new people, maybe visiting the land where my mother was born.”

“You never imagined traveling to Egypt to free a nation from slavery?” Miriam’s sarcasm was so rare and understated that Tzipporah needed to look at her closely to be sure she was making a joke. The quirk in her lips confirmed that she was.

“No, I didn’t,” Tzipporah said. “If I thought we could succeed, I’d go with you in a heartbeat. But I’ve seen Egypt. It’s going to take more than the two of us to topple that empire. And I can’t leave my sisters again.”

“I understand.” The near-smile faded from Miriam’s mouth. “I’m sorry for making you worry about me,” she said. “I used to worry Aaron too. He thought if I talked about freedom too much, the Egyptians would hear and punish us. But if I didn’t speak out, no one would, and nothing would change.”

“You’re doing what you think is right,” Tzipporah said. “I’m doing the same.”

“I wish I didn’t have to do it,” Miriam admitted. “I’ve been happy here. Happier than I’ve ever been before. I wish I could stay, but…”

“But you have to go back for Aaron.”

“And everyone else,” Miriam said. “Even if I knew that he -that something had happened to him, I’d go back. If even one of my people was still enslaved, I would go back for them.”

“I believe you,” Tzipporah said. “I just wish you were going back with a plan.”

“God will guide me. That’s enough of a plan for me.”

Tzipporah waited for Miriam to release her hand and leave. The night wind picked up, tossing the Asherah pole’s ribbon. Miriam glanced at it, and a thoughtful expression crossed her face.

“Could you tell me more about Asherah before I go?” she asked.

“Why? You don’t worship her.”

“Maybe you can tell me something that would help me talk to her worshippers. They must want to be free as much as my people do.” With Miriam’s hand warm in hers, Tzipporah found it difficult to recall anything about Asherah. Looking at Miriam’s face, possibly for the last time, Tzipporah could hardly recall her own name.

_That’s it. My name. _

“I was named for Asherah,” she said. “She’s supposed to appear to her worshippers in the form of a bird. A kingfisher, usually.” There were a few differences, Tzipporah knew, between the language spoken in Midian and that spoken by the Hebrews in Egypt. But they shared the same word for bird: tzippor.

“A kingfisher?” Miriam’s voice sounded oddly strained.

“Yes. My mother said if you dreamed of a kingfisher, it meant Asherah was sending you a message.”

Miriam’s hand tightened on Tzipporah’s. “What kind of message?” she asked.

“I don’t know. I’ve never had one of those dreams. Why?”

Miriam’s throat moved as she swallowed. “Do you remember the first night we went stargazing?” she asked.

"Yes.”

“There was a kingfisher in the dream I had that night. I remember it because it was the last time that God spoke to me. And when you woke me from a nightmare - there was a kingfisher in that dream too.”

The swaying ribbon on the Asherah pole drew Tzipporah’s eye. Was it her imagination that made it look like a bird’s wing fluttering?

“I don’t know what that means,” she said, and then, impulsively: “Do you sense anything here? Asherah or any other god?”

“I don’t sense God. I hear His voice, when He chooses to speak to me.”

“Do you hear anything now?”

Miriam closed her eyes. Her lips moved in a silent prayer. After a long silence, she opened her eyes and said, “I don’t hear anything. But I know that first dream came from God, even if the second one didn’t. So it must mean something.”

“What happened in the dream?”

“God told me that Moses wasn’t ready to return to Egypt yet.”

“What about the kingfisher? What did it do?” Tzipporah asked.

“It flew to me and landed on my finger.”

It would have been too convenient, Tzipporah supposed, if the bird had said she should stay in Midian and let herself fall in love with a certain very pretty and talented shepherdess.

_It’s up to me to say something instead. _

“You could ask my father about it tomorrow. He’s good at interpreting dreams,” she said. She watched Miriam’s expression shift from doubt to hesitation to consideration. With her large eyes and expressive mouth, every emotion showed plainly.

“It wouldn’t hurt to wait one more day, to try to understand the dream,” Miriam said. “If God sent it to me, it must be important.”

“I agree,” Tzipporah said.

“And if it’s not yet time for Moses to return, maybe it isn’t time for me either.”

“I’m sure when God wants you to leave, He’ll tell you.”

Miriam moved her free hand restlessly, smoothing out the hem of her dress. “It feels selfish to stay.”

“Preserving your own life isn’t selfishness. When you can go back without endangering yourself, you’ll go.”

Miriam drew her other hand back from Tzipporah’s. “I still can’t be with you,” she said. “I don’t want to make leaving any harder than it has to be. It isn’t fair to either of us, to fall in love when we both know I’ll leave some day.”

“I know,” Tzipporah said. “When you’re ready to leave, I won’t hold you back.”

She stood and offered a hand to help Miriam up. Miriam took it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Asherah poles are mentioned a few times in the Torah, though it’s unclear exactly what they looked like. Tzipporah’s claim that Asherah is not an Egyptian god is not completely true: a goddess called Qetesh is mentioned in Egyptian sources, and it’s likely that this goddess was at least partially based on Asherah.
> 
> Exodus 12:38 says that a “mixed multitude” of former slaves left Egypt together, probably meaning people from a mixture of ethnic groups. Theoretically, this could have included people with a mixture of religious practices.
> 
> “Tzippor” really does mean “bird” in Hebrew, with “Tzipporah” being a feminine version of the word. The idea of Asherah appearing in bird form is based on the essay “Rediscovering Tziporah” from The Women’s Torah Commentary by Elyse Goldstein, which discusses the worship of bird goddesses in the Near East.


	24. Chapter 24

Heeding Tzipporah’s advice, Miriam went to Jethro’s tent the next day. She did not tell him about her attempt to leave Midian, saying only that she had experienced strange dreams and that Tzipporah had suggested seeking his help.

“What kind of dreams?” Jethro asked.

Miriam had paced circles in her own mind, wondering how much to tell him. On the one hand, Jethro was close to Moses, and she worried about what he might tell her brother. On the other hand, Jethro was the high priest, and if she couldn’t trust a priest, who could she trust?

“Dreams from God,” she said.

Jethro raised an eyebrow, but did not otherwise react. “What did God tell you?”

Once she had told him about the dreams, everything else came pouring out: the message from God she had received as a child, Moses’s destiny, the kingfisher, Tzipporah’s talk about Asherah. By the time she finished, she felt drained, like an empty well.

Jethro leaned back. His eyebrows had continued to rise throughout her speech, but now they lowered into a thoughtful frown.

“Incredible,” he murmured. “To think I’ve had a prophet of God living here all this time…”

“Moses is a prophet too,” Miriam said. “He’s the one God chose.”

“From what you’ve told me, God chose both of you.”

Miriam twisted the bracelet on her wrist. When she had told her mother about hearing God’s voice, Yocheved had accepted the story without question. Her father had been more skeptical, but her stubborn insistence swayed him. Neither of her parents had ever spoken of her encounter with God in the awed, reverential tone that Jethro used.

“Moses will be the one to deliver us,” she said. “My role is to help him.”

“Do you still not wish to tell him of his destiny?”

“No,” Miriam said. “He’s not ready.”

Jethro nodded slowly. “I suppose you’re right. Moses is young, and the lives of God’s chosen ones are often filled with hardship.”

Miriam knew the stories. Abraham, told to sacrifice his son. Hagar, cast into the wilderness. Joseph, sold into slavery by his brothers. So much suffering, but always, _always_, the stories ended in redemption.

“In any case,” Jethro said. “We were discussing your dreams. Do you believe the second one came from God as well?”

“I don’t know,” Miriam said. “I didn’t think so until Tzipporah told me about kingfishers being a sign from Asherah. The dream can’t have come from Asherah, so perhaps it came from God. But if it did, why didn’t He speak to me directly?”

“Perhaps because the last time He did, you were resistant to His message.”

“I had to argue with Him,” Miriam protested. “I needed Him to understand how important it is for me to return.”

“It sounds like He wants you to stay here. In the second dream, the kingfisher woke you as you were thinking of Egypt.”

“Tzipporah woke me,” Miriam said.

“Then perhaps what God wants is for you to listen to her.”

Miriam stood and backed away. “Thank you for talking with me,” she said. “But I can interpret the rest of the dream on my own.”

Jethro did not stop her. All he said was, “Very well. But Tzipporah cares deeply for you. Remember that.”

Miriam left his tent and walked out into the encampment. A thick heat haze shimmered in the air, except it wasn’t a heat haze, Miriam realized, as she rubbed her eyes. It was tears.

_Everyone is telling me that Tzipporah and I can be together. Why can’t I believe them?_

A pair of Midianite children ran past her, shrieking with laughter as they chased each other. One tackled the other, and they rolled on the ground, giggling.

She remembered playing games of chase with the other slave children. The most popular game was called “hide me.” One child, designated as “the Egyptian”, counted to sixty while everyone else hid. Then the Egyptian searched for them. Once found, you had to run to the nearest house, bang on the door, and yell, “Hide me!” Sometimes an adult would play along and let you in. Sometimes, no one would answer, and the Egyptian would catch you.

Her mother had found the game disturbing, and discouraged her children from playing it. Miriam had never managed to explain to her the exhilaration of escaping the “Egyptian,” the sense of victory when an adult let her in and slammed the door. Her mother had looked at the game and seen the recreation of trauma. Miriam had played it and experienced the joy of freedom. The fact that it was a temporary escape and imaginary freedom hadn’t mattered. Imaginary was enough.

_Imaginary isn’t enough anymore. I want real freedom. Could I have that in Midian?_

She slowed her pace. She looked at the tents around her, the beautiful rugs spilling from their entrances, the people seated inside weaving, preparing food, going about their daily lives. Walking through the camp, she saw Rivka nursing her son. She saw Hobab gesturing excitedly as he talked to Yaakov. She saw Ephorah approaching, her head bowed in quiet contemplation.

_It’s a good life. But it’s not my life._

Midian was not and never would be her home. It was too foreign from what she had grown up with. Only the Promised Land felt like home. How strange, to be homesick for a place she had never been.

Ephorah raised her head. Her friendly smile faded before it had fully emerged. “Miriam? Are you all right?” she asked.

Miriam wiped her eyes again. “I’m fine,” she said. The break in her voice betrayed her.

“Do you want to talk to Tzipporah? I could go to the pastures and get her.”

“No,” Miriam said. “I can handle this.”

“And what exactly are you handling?” Ephorah had the same sharp, perceptive eyes as her sister. Despite being much younger than Miriam, she was nearly the same height.

“It’s personal. I’ve already talked with Tzipporah about it.”

“Fine,” Ephorah said. “But whatever it is, it doesn’t look like you’re handling it very well.”

Miriam had no rebuttal to that, so she walked on. She went past the outlying tents, past the people returning from gathering wood, on to the well where Tzipporah had found her so long ago. She stayed there until the last of her tears dried. Then she went back.

* * *

She had planned to leave after hearing the dream interpreted, but she waited for Tzipporah to return from the sheep pastures first. Then it was late, and she was tired, and Tzipporah looked at her with such quiet, aching sadness that she decided to stay one more night. 

The next day, Yiska had one of her breathing attacks, a bad one that left her collapsed on the ground, struggling to exhale. Miriam couldn’t leave Tzipporah right after that. Then Rivka’s sister became pregnant, and what if she had the same difficulties giving birth as Rivka?

Reasons to remain piled up, until she admitted - first to herself, then to Tzipporah - that she intended to stay a little longer. 

The relief in Tzipporah’s eyes warmed Miriam, but a lingering guilt overshadowed the warmth. Over the following weeks, when longing for Aaron or the Promised Land or something she couldn’t name overcame her, Miriam went to the mountains. After several failed attempts, she located the cave Tzipporah had shown her. She hesitated at the entrance, then stepped inside.

The Asherah pole looked even shabbier by daylight. The wood was weathered and the ribbon ragged, completely unlike the grand, carefully maintained statues of Egyptian gods. This comforted Miriam. She refused to believe in gods that would condone infanticide and slavery. She would not have used an Egyptian place of worship as a place of refuge. But no one had bled or died to build the Asherah pole. Presumably, God would free the slaves who followed Asherah along with His own people when the time came. And just being near an Asherah pole didn’t constitute idol worship. Therefore, she concluded, God could not object to her presence there.

The cave provided the perfect place to be alone with her thoughts. Other than the wind’s gentle sigh, no sound disturbed her. When the quiet became oppressive, she sang wordless melodies and songs she remembered from Egypt. After a lifetime of slavery, the freedom to do nothing but sit and think and sing was like getting a glimpse of the Promised Land.

She was trying to recall the ending lyrics of a work song when a voice interrupted her.

“I didn’t realize you knew about this place.”

Ephorah stood in the cave entrance, arms folded across her chest. Miriam got to her feet. She felt as though she’d been caught trespassing.

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

“I could ask the same thing of you. You never struck me as an Asherah worshipper.”

“I’m not,” Miriam said. “I came here to be alone.”

Ephorah entered the cave and sat across from Miriam.

“Fair enough,” she said. “I know how hard it is to get any privacy in the camp.”

Ephorah’s pose was relaxed. Cautiously, Miriam sat back down. She was ashamed to realize how little she knew Tzipporah’s sisters. She knew about Yiska’s breathing problems and Keturah’s skill at pottery, but her preoccupation with returning to Egypt had prevented her from getting to know them in any more detail. She had no idea what Ephorah wanted.

“Is that why you came here?” she ventured. “For privacy?”

“Usually it is. Today I came because I was following you. I wanted to know where you kept sneaking off to.”

“Well, now you know.”

Ephorah leaned forward. “Tzipporah brought you here,” she said.

“Yes.”

“She must trust you a lot. She’s never told anyone about it besides me and my sisters.”

“We’ve grown close.” 

“I’ve noticed,” Ephorah said, in a way that suggested she had noticed more than Miriam would have liked. Her suspicion was confirmed when Ephorah added, conversationally, “So, are you going to do the honorable thing and marry her?”

Miriam blushed so hard she felt heat spreading as far as her chest.

“No. I turned her down,” she said.

“Why?”

“I have to return to Egypt.” Miriam was sick of explaining this. It was not unusual for a prophet to be questioned, she knew, but even a prophet’s patience had limits.

“To rescue your brother?” Ephorah asked.

“I –yes.” Miriam stopped herself from blurting out the full truth.

“I can understand that,” Ephorah said. “When Tzipporah was kidnapped, I would have done anything to get her back.” She straightened up and asked, “When you go, will you ask Tzipporah to go with you?”

“I did,” Miriam admitted. “She said she wouldn’t leave her family.”

Ephorah released a shaky breath. “Good,” she said. “I mean, I know she can take care of herself. She escaped Egypt once. But...”

“But you’re afraid of losing her again,” Miriam finished. 

“Yes.” Ephorah blinked forcefully before she resumed speaking. “What are you planning to do after Egypt?”

“Moses and I are going to take our people to the Promised Land.”

“Moses is going back with you?”

“He isn’t ready yet, but I’ll convince him.”

Ephorah laughed, but not derisively. “You’re stubborn,” she said. “No wonder Tzipporah likes you.”

“I have to go back and free my people,” Miriam said. “Then no one will suffer like our siblings suffered.”

Ephorah didn’t laugh at that. Instead, she cocked her head to one side. “If you think about it, our people are siblings,” she said. “Hebrews and Midianites are both descended from Abraham, just by different sons. At least, that’s what the stories say.”

“I know. I’ve heard the same stories,” Miriam said.

If Tzipporah had the bright fierceness of a kingfisher, then Ephorah had the sharp, intelligent black eyes of a raven.

“Before you go on to the Promised Land, you could come back here,” she said. “The Egyptians will want revenge for the loss of their slaves. If your people allied with mine, we’d both be safer. We could all go to the Promised Land together.”

_ Together.  _ Miriam’s heart leapt at the word, but caution restrained her tongue.

“Would anyone want to go? You have a good life here,” she said.

“It’s a good life, but it’s fragile. Tzipporah isn’t the only one to have been captured by slavers. You’ve been working as a midwife. You must have seen how many difficult births there are. And the land isn’t good for anything except sheep. If the Egyptian slavers don’t wipe us out, a bad disease in the herds will. Still, we know how to live in these lands. We’ve been doing it for a long time. You’ll need that knowledge once you’re free.” Young though she was, Ephorah spoke like a seasoned negotiator. Miriam didn’t need the gift of prophecy to know that she’d be a great leader one day.

“I’d like to come back here after I’ve freed my people,” she said. “But I don’t know what will happen. I won’t be the one leading them.”

“Who will lead them, then?”

_ Moses _ , she thought, but there was a more honest answer that wouldn’t require her to explain the prophecy.

“God.”

Ephorah stood up, brushing sand from her dress.

“Let’s hope He leads them well, for all our sakes,” she said. She offered her hand.

“Do you want to pray together? For the safety of our people?”

Miriam glanced at the Asherah pole.

“We can pray to God here. God is everywhere, after all.”

True enough. God was in the Egyptian worksites and the Nile’s mud and the slave graveyard and everywhere else Miriam had ever prayed to Him. Miriam took Ephorah’s hand.

“Baruch atah Adonai…”

She prayed for her people, as she always did. In her heart, she uttered a second, quieter prayer.

_ Let Ephorah be right. Give me a way to be with Tzipporah. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The “hide me” game is loosely inspired by stories of similar “games” played by the descendants of Holocaust survivors.


	25. Chapter 25

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Content warning: animal death

When the season turned and the sheep began to shed their winter coats, the Midianite shepherds led them to a shallow river. They combed out the loose wool, washed it in the river, let it dry, then took the sheep and the sacks of clean wool back to camp. The whole process took anywhere from a few days to a few weeks, depending on the cooperation of the sheep and whether the shepherds ran into bandits.

Miriam knew all this because Tzipporah had described the process last year. This year, Tzipporah suggested she come along.

“I don’t know anything about sheep,” Miriam said.

“You can learn. You might need to know one day. What if the Promised Land is full of sheep?”

“It’s not,” Miriam said.

“How do you know? It’s supposed to be flowing with milk and honey. That milk has to come from somewhere.”

“Goats give milk too.” It was a ridiculous argument, but she loved Tzipporah’s mischievous smile too much not to argue.

“If it’s full of goats, you don’t want to go there. Goats smell worse than camels, especially during breeding season.” Tzipporah put a friendly arm around her shoulders, and Miriam found herself agreeing to come along without quite knowing how Tzipporah had convinced her.

She justified the decision while helping Tzipporah pack for the journey. Ephorah had a point, after all. Even with God’s help, learning to live outside of Egypt would be difficult. They wouldn’t have the regular Nile floods for growing crops. Assuming the Egyptians let them take their livestock, they would have to keep that livestock alive until reaching the Promised Land. Her people would need someone to help them. If she learned now, she could pass on her knowledge later. Besides, it had been difficult to sleep last year without Tzipporah beside her. Miriam had woken repeatedly in the night, reaching out and finding only empty blankets.

So, when the time came, she woke early and trekked with Tzipporah to the sheep pastures. They met Moses and the other shepherds along the way, but exchanged only brief greetings. They had a long day of work ahead. The sliver of sun on the horizon gave no heat and dew soaked the hem of Miriam’s dress, but with Tzipporah by her side, she couldn’t help feeling warm.

Over the three days it took to reach the river, the sun blazed like molten metal. The sheep kicked up dust, coating everyone in a fine brown powder. A ram stepped on Hobab’s foot, and though he insisted he was fine when Yaakov fussed over him, he limped for the rest of the journey. When Moses noticed a sick lamb lagging behind the flock, he picked it up and carried it on his shoulders. He, Tzipporah, and Miriam took turns carrying the animal, though Tzipporah handled the extra weight better than Miriam and Moses did.

At night, Miriam’s shoulders ached and no amount of water could rinse the taste of dust from her mouth. But she had dealt with worse in Egypt, and besides, evenings brought the comfort of sleeping next to Tzipporah. In the tent back in Midian they had kept to their own cots, but under the open sky the nights were too cold for that. They nestled close together, and whenever Miriam woke, she found Tzipporah’s arm wrapped around her.

Real trouble struck on the fourth day. They could see the river, but hadn’t yet reached it when another group crossed their path. These people, too, were shepherds, but their ranks held only men. They all carried weapons, and Miriam recognized their clothing as the same type of linen worn by Egyptians.

“Amalekites,” Tzipporah said under her breath. “Don’t worry, they’re cowards. They only attack lone travelers and children.”

She raised her voice and addressed the Amalekites. “We’re on our way to the river. Let us through.”

An Amalekite man stepped forward. Gaudy jewels adorned his clothes. “Jethro is still letting a woman lead his people, I see,” he said.

“And your people are still letting themselves be led by an ass,” Tzipporah replied.

Moses snickered.

The Amalekite leader said, “I heard the Egyptians captured you. It’s a pity they didn’t teach you some respect.”

“They caught me, but I escaped. Turns out the Egyptians were the ones who needed to learn respect. Much like you do.” Tzipporah squared her shoulders and held her staff like a sword. In her hands, it looked just as dangerous. Some of the Amalekites took a step back.

“There’s no need for violence,” said the leader, though his hand rested on the hilt of his knife. “Pay the toll and we won’t have any problems.”

“The river is neutral territory and we both know it. You can’t charge a toll here.” Tzipporah spun her staff with casual confidence and walked forward. This time, even the leader backed away.

“We were here first,” the leader said. “We’ll use the river for our sheep first.”

“Fine. We’ll camp up here.” Tzipporah indicated a slight hill that rose alongside the river. “And we’ll set guards, so don’t think about trying anything.”

They herded the sheep up the hill.

“Was that wise?” Hobab asked Tzipporah. “Letting them use the river first?”

“They were here before us, so they had a fair claim to it.”

“They’re getting bolder,” Yaakov said. “They’ve never challenged us like that before.”

Hobab put a hand on his husband’s shoulder. “They’re all talk. If it comes to a fight, we could take them.”

“We could,” Tzipporah agreed. “But I don’t want to start a fight if it isn’t necessary.” Her scowl belied her words.

“Weren’t the Amalekites the ones threatening your sisters at the well the day I first came here?” Moses asked.

“Yes. That’s why I don’t let them go to the well on their own anymore.”

Moses, Hobab, and Yaakov still looked uneasy. Miriam, on the other hand, felt oddly calm. As everyone dispersed, taking positions around the flock, she watched Tzipporah use her staff to pull back a wandering sheep.

Miriam had felt safe around Aaron, despite the dangers of Egypt. She felt safe around Tzipporah too, but not in the same way. With Aaron, she had possessed the grim comfort of knowing that if a whip struck her, Aaron would bandage the wounds. With Tzipporah, she didn’t fear the whip at all. If an Egyptian slavedriver had appeared in Midian and raised his lash to strike, Tzipporah wouldn’t have begged him to stop or offered to take the beating herself. She would have grabbed the whip and flung it aside.

_But she knows when to seek peace instead of fighting. That’s important too_.

“Stay close to me while they’re here,” Tzipporah said. “There are rumors about Amalekites kidnapping people and selling them to Egyptians.”

“That would explain why their clothing is Egyptian,” Miriam said.

The Amalekites stayed at the river for two days. On the second day, they sacrificed three sheep in a messy, bloody ritual to their gods. Miriam, taking Tzipporah’s advice, did not watch. Tzipporah did, though all she said was, “That’s a stupid way to slaughter animals.”

Once the Amalekites left, the work went quickly. Miriam helped comb the loose wool from the sheep’s fur, though the animals were skittish under her inexperienced touch. They stayed perfectly quiet for Moses. They didn’t kick, not even when he lay on the ground to comb the wool on their bellies. He had Yocheved’s gentleness.

She tried to focus on her brother, but her eyes kept straying to Tzipporah. Tzipporah wore a loose, comfortable dress with the skirt tied up to keep it out of her way. In any other situation, her clothing would have looked indecent, but everyone was too busy to give her a second glance. Everyone except Miriam.

By the time the sky turned from pale morning pink to a dark, cloudless blue, their work was done. Hobab and Yaakov wandered off together, holding hands. Moses volunteered to watch the sheep while Tzipporah went down to the river to bathe.

“You could go with her,” Moses suggested.

“She didn’t ask me to go. She might not want me there.” _Especially not after I’ve rejected her so many times._

“She definitely wants you there,” Moses said.

“How do you know?”

“Because I’ve heard her talking about you for months.”

Miriam went, but stopped at the river’s edge. She’d seen Tzipporah in various states of undress before. Living in the same tent, it was impossible not to. But seeing her completely naked, the muscles in her shoulders, the glistening trickles of water running down her body…

“Like what you see?” Tzipporah asked.

Miriam could not answer. She could barely remember how to breathe.

Tzipporah’s flirtatious smile faded. “Is something wrong?”

“No,” Miriam managed. “I - I was going to, um, I was going to bathe too…”

“Oh. Well, you can go ahead.”

Miriam had never found it so difficult to undress. Her fingers did not work properly. She turned away to fold her clothes and place them on a rock by the river.

_Is Tzipporah watching me? Do I want her to? _

She stepped into the river, keeping her back turned to Tzipporah. Handling the sheep had left a layer of oil on her skin. Dust and strands of wool stuck to her arms. Swirls of brown drifted off into the current.

She’d always had a good sense for being watched. It was a useful skill for a slave. She felt Tzipporah’s gaze on her for long enough that she finally turned to face her again.

“Your scars are fading,” Tzipporah said.

“They always fade,” Miriam said.

“How many times was ‘always’?”

Miriam counted up in her head. There had been the single lashes. The thrown rocks. The time a bored guard tossed a brick at the wall next to her head and the ricochet of fragments left her face dripping blood.

She decided to count only the serious beatings. “Seven times.”

Tzipporah didn’t swear, but the quiet fury in her expression contained a thousand curses. “I remember what your back looked like when you first came here. Going through that seven times…”

“It would have been more if not for Aaron. He was good at distracting the guards.”

Tzipporah anticipated her line of thought. “I’m sure he’s fine. He looked after both of you for years. He knows how to take care of himself.”

“Yes.” Miriam trusted God’s promise. She was sure Aaron was safe, but it was good to hear Tzipporah’s reassurance, all the same.

“Do you know yet when you’ll go back?” Tzipporah asked.

“No. I haven’t heard anything from God.” Talking about God reminded her of the Asherah pole.

“I talked with Ephorah before we left,” she said. “She suggested that after I free my people, I could come back here. Your people could ally with mine, and we could all go to the Promised Land together.”

Tzipporah did not immediately reject the idea, as Miriam had feared she would. Still, a long pause stretched before her answer.

“Some people would want to go. There are always a few idealists convinced life would be better somewhere else. But you’d have a hard time convincing the old people like Naomi.”

“Would you go?”

Once more, Tzipporah hesitated. “I don’t know. I’d like to see more of the lands outside Midian. And I’d like to get away from the Amalekites. But I’m not convinced life would be any better there than it is here.”

“Maybe you were right about the Promised Land being full of sheep,” Miriam said. “Maybe we’ll need someone who can herd them.”

Tzipporah’s faint frown transformed into a smile. “Have I told you how much I love it when you make jokes? You never used to do it.”

“There used to not be much in my life I could joke about.” Her heart had lurched when Tzipporah said “love.” Again, she noticed the drops of water that glittered in Tzipporah’s hair. This close together, she could even see the droplets on her eyelashes.

_Look at her face, just look at her face, don’t look any lower than her face_.

“Hey.” Tzipporah raised her hand to point over Miriam’s shoulder. “We have an audience.”

The “audience” consisted of a pair of kingfishers. One preened its ruddy chest with a comically oversized beak. The top half of the beak gleamed black, but the lower half shone bright orange.

“The one on the right is a female,” Tzipporah said. “Males have an all-black beak.”

The black-beaked bird on the left ruffled its feathers.

"That must be her mate. She’d chase him off otherwise. They’re very territorial, but they mate for life.”

As if on cue, the female began preening her mate.

“Maybe it’s another message from Asherah,” Tzipporah said.

“It could be a message from God,” Miriam said.

“What’s He trying to tell us?”

“I don’t know,” Miriam said.

That was a lie. More and more, she did know. She just didn’t dare to say it. Not yet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Based on my research, cattle would not have been used for milk production in this part of the world at this time, and camel milk isn’t kosher, which is why goats and sheep are the only milk-producing livestock Miriam and Tzipporah discuss.
> 
> Tzipporah is correct about goats being smelly and gross. During breeding season, goats roll in their own urine. 
> 
> I did try to research the history of wool production, but couldn’t find much. For the scenes here, I combined what little historically-appropriate info I could find (wool would have been combed out, not sheared) with a description of sheep shearing in medieval England (which isn’t the right time period or location but was the closest detailed description I could find).
> 
> The Amalekites are mentioned as enemies of the Hebrew people in a few parts of the Torah. Later Jewish tradition expanded on the story, portraying them as preying on people who are marginalized and powerless.


	26. Chapter 26

Blood dripped from Aaron’s left hand as he walked home at the end of a long workday. His chisel had slipped while carving a particularly delicate bit on the statue of Crown Prince Rameses. He’d kept working, of course. The taskmasters didn’t let you stop for anything that wasn’t crippling, and sometimes not even then.

The journey back to Goshen always began with a crowd of slaves. They dispersed along the path, some rushing ahead to their homes and families and some lagging behind, too exhausted to move faster than a stumble. Aaron had nearly reached his home, so he walked alone.

Not as alone as he thought, it turned out. A tap on his shoulder brought him out of his exhausted haze. An elderly man held out a strip of cloth and gestured to his bleeding hand. It took Aaron a moment to recall the man’s name: Yitzchak, son of Asher.

Aaron took the cloth with a word of thanks. Yitzchak looked from side to side, then leaned closer. “I heard you were looking for a boy named Gad, son of Tamar,” he said.

Aaron had nearly given up looking for Tamar’s son. But he hadn’t forgotten the boy’s name. “Yes. Do you know where he is?”

“I took him in,” Yitzchak said. “Someone had to. He barely spoke for months, so I didn’t know if he had any family. Then I heard you’d managed to find his mother.”

“She found me,” Aaron said.

“Where is she now?”

“She was bought by a nobleman. She’s working for him.” No need to tell the boy what was really happening to his mother. None of them could do anything about it.

“I’ll tell him,” Yitzchak said. He put a hand on Aaron’s shoulder. “Take care of yourself.”

Aaron nodded vaguely. “I’ll tell Tamar her son is in good hands,” he said.

Yitzchak smiled, then shuffled off with a word of farewell.

Aaron wound the bandage around his hand and flexed it experimentally. It still hurt, but the cloth would slow the bleeding. With any luck, he’d be able to work normally tomorrow, and the overseers wouldn’t have any reason to accuse him of laziness.

He turned a corner to see his home. There in the doorway stood Elisheva. He saw dark splotches on her hands and something inside him twisted like a knife. Then he realized they were ink spots, not bruises.

_Thank God. I couldn’t stand it if she was hurt too_.

“What are you doing here?” he asked.

A triumphant gleam shone in Elisheva’s eyes. “I found out where Atum lives.”

The pain in Aaron’s hand faded. “Are you sure it’s the right person?”

“He fits Tamar’s description. He’s young and part of a slave-trading family. I managed to talk to someone who knows someone who works for them.”

“Did their slave say what they were like?”

“His father is strict, but Atum isn’t so bad. It sounds like he’d be willing to take your message, if you can give him something in exchange.”

Aaron had nothing to offer but his labor. That would have to be enough.

“Where does he live?”

“The merchants’ quarter. I know the area. I pass through there on my way to the scribes’ rooms. I’ll show you.”

“You don’t have to -”

“I want to.”

On another day, Aaron might have argued. But his hand hurt, and Elisheva had that stubborn look in her eyes. “All right,” he said. “When do you think we should go?”

“They said he’s leaving soon for another expedition. We’ll go tonight.”

* * *

They stayed in Goshen just long enough to eat a quick meal, re-bandage Aaron’s injury, and grab the scroll that carried his message to Miriam. Elisheva had smuggled ink and papyrus to Aaron weeks ago. Thin cracks showed in the scroll. It had been scraped and re-used multiple times before the scribes discarded it. Aaron prayed it would hold together long enough to reach Miriam.

Night descended as they crept through the merchants’ quarter. Clouds hid the stars, for which Aaron was grateful. In the darkness, they stood a better chance of not being seen by Egyptians. In the deeper shadow cast by a column, they paused.

“That’s where he lives,” Elisheva said, pointing to an elegant house.

Aaron nodded once to show he understood, then once more to convince himself he could do this.

“I’ll go,” he said. “You wait here. Make sure they don’t see you.”

“I’ll wait for you,” Elisheva said.

By now, Aaron knew her well enough to hear the unspoken promise in her words:  _ If they hurt you, I’ll help you get home safely. _

That promise gave him the courage to walk to the door and knock on it.

He kept his head respectfully lowered as the door opened. He could not see the face of the person who answered, but he heard a young voice ask, “What are you - oh, you’re delivering a message. I’ll take it.”

Aaron pulled the scroll back from the extended hand. “It’s not a message for you, sir.” He still did not look up, but from the sound of the voice that had spoken, he guessed the Egyptian was about sixteen.

“Then what is it?”

Aaron swallowed. “It’s a request, sir.” He dared to raise his head, just a little, so that he was staring at the Egyptian’s knees rather than his feet. “Are you the trader who passed through Midian some time ago? The one who brought a slave woman named Tamar and her child to Egypt?”

“My expedition brought back a couple of slaves. I don’t remember their names.”

“I spoke with a slave named Tamar, sir.” Fear kept Aaron speaking quickly, words tumbling out like a landslide. “She said that she spoke with a freed slave named Miriam. I need to get a message to her.”

“Oh, her!” The young voice brightened. “I remember her. She was with the Midianites.”

“Will your next expedition go through Midian, sir?” Aaron asked.

“I don’t know. No one ever tells me where we’re going next.”

Aaron wiped his sweating hands on his shirt. “Could you take this message, sir, please? It’s for Miriam. If you could give it to her next time you pass through Midian, sir, I’d do anything to repay you.”

“My father already owns slaves…”

“I’m good at stone carving,” Aaron said. “I helped carve the face on the new statue of Crown Prince Rameses.” 

“Sorry, but I can’t think of any use for a stone carver.”

“What about for an ink-mixer?” Elisheva’s voice rang out clearly as she stepped forward. 

Aaron’s heart plummeted as though turned to lead. He stammered, trying and failing to think of an excuse to explain Elisheva’s presence. Atum raised a hand, silencing him.

“I work in the scribes’ rooms,” Elisheva continued. “I can mix ink, prepare papyrus, and clean stains out of clothes.”

Atum eyed her thoughtfully. “My father might have a use for you. We employ a few scribes to keep track of our records.”

“I’m a good worker,” Elisheva said. “Set your terms and I’ll show you.”

“Let’s say you work for us for, oh, I don’t know, a month?”

“I can do that.”

Atum smiled. “Good. I’ll see you tomorrow. And I’ll take your message.” He held out his hand.

Aaron hesitated, looking from Elisheva to the extended hand. Elisheva nodded, almost imperceptibly. He handed over the scroll.

* * *

Aaron and Elisheva did not speak until they were safely back in Goshen. Aaron broke the silence.

“You shouldn’t have agreed to that.”

“Why not? Now you can get your message to Miriam,” Elisheva said. 

Aaron ducked as they passed under a low archway. “You don’t know what they’re like. You’ve signed yourself over to them for a whole month.”

“You would have done it.”

“I work on the statues. I’m used to being beaten. If they’re the kind of people who beat their slaves for fun, I could handle it. But you -”

“I handled this.” Elisheva pointed to the scar on her jaw.

“Why, though? You were never close with Miriam.” 

“No. But I’ve become close with you.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

Elisheva stopped. Broken moonlight shone through the clouds above her, falling in scattered fragments.

“It means I love you, Aaron.”

Words rose halfway up Aaron’s throat and stuck there. He stuttered, swallowed, tried and failed to force out something coherent.

“I don’t expect you to say it back,” Elisheva said. “I know it’s complicated for you. You miss Miriam too much to love someone else. And you’ve made it clear that you don’t want children.”

Aaron found his voice. “I do. Just not here. Not when Pharaoh still has power over our lives.”

“This is the only life we’ll get, Aaron.”

“Not if Miriam is right.”

Elisheva smiled. The scar twisted her mouth. “Have you started to believe in her stories about a deliverer?”

Aaron shook his head. “I don’t know what to believe anymore. Moses was dead, then he wasn’t. Miriam was gone, and now she isn’t.”

“I believe in you.” Elisheva said it with the same certainty she might have used to say, “Water is wet” or “Bricks are heavy.” She said it as though believing in him was the most obvious choice in the world.

“You should find someone better to believe in,” he said.

“I haven’t found anyone better yet.”

Aaron ran a hand over his face. “Go home,” he said. “Nahshon will be worried about you.”

Elisheva moved her hand as though about to reach for his, then let it fall back to her side. “I’ll go,” she said. And she did. She did not look back, though Aaron watched for longer than he liked to admit.

He went home to his empty house and, after much tossing and turning, fell asleep. He woke up with tears in his eyes. He could not remember what he had dreamed of.


	27. Chapter 27

Midianites did not grow crops. The soil was too poor to support any. Instead, they gathered whatever food the land produced. When spring moved toward summer, they set out to gather dates. The fruits could be dried and preserved for lean times or boiled into a sweet syrup. People traveled in groups and made a celebration of the harvest, singing songs and placing bets on who could gather the most in the least amount of time. They traveled from grove to grove, sleeping under the trees and waking early to chase birds away.

Miriam accompanied these groups. She learned the harvest songs and sang them along with Tzipporah’s sisters. Moses and Tzipporah stayed behind to watch the sheep, and at night, Miriam missed them. But during the day, she didn’t think of the prophecy or her conflicted feelings for Tzipporah. She thought of sweetness and the sound of voices rising in joyous work.

She was devastated when they arrived at the last grove of date palms to find that blight had struck. Black spots discolored the fronds. The few fruits clinging to the branches were small and bitter.

“Is the blight in the water or the air?” Yosef wondered out loud. That gave them some hope. If it was in the air, a strong wind might blow it away. They dug into the soil around the trees until they hit water. An acrid smell oozed from the earth, but Miriam tried a mouthful of the water anyways. She immediately spat it out.

“What’s wrong with it?” Yosef asked.

“Salt,” Miriam said. 

They searched for any dates worth harvesting, but found none. As they traipsed back to their previous campsite, worried murmurs rippled through the crowd.

“If the water’s tainted, this grove will die.”

“Nothing we can do about it. Besides, we have enough to survive this year.”

“What if the blight spreads?”

They returned to the main camp to consult with Jethro. Miriam explained what they had found. After lengthy debate, Tzipporah volunteered to take the camel and search for new trees.

“You can come with me,” she said to Miriam. The two of them were in Tzipporah’s tent, packing for the expedition.

“My father doesn’t want me to go alone. I could ask Moses or Hobab, but I’d rather have you there.”

“Do you think we’ll run into the Amalekites again?” Miriam wanted very much to go, but she knew full well that Hobab could protect Tzipporah from an attack better than she could. 

Tzipporah shook her head. “I’m going to scout away from their lands. They won’t be a problem.”

Miriam agreed to accompany her and they set out on Tzipporah’s camel. The shelter of the mountains gave way to rolling dunes and scrubby grasses. Once in a while, they found groups of palms huddled around a water source, but upon inspection, none of the trees bore fruit. At night, the blazing heat of the desert gave way to shocking cold. Tzipporah, always practical, slept against the camel’s side. The animal stank, but it gave off heat like a kiln. 

As on the journey to the river, Miriam slept next to Tzipporah. They never found enough water to waste on bathing, which meant the camel’s smell lingered on both of them. It was worth it, though, to wake up in Tzipporah’s arms. Every night, Miriam closed her eyes and allowed herself to imagine falling asleep like this for the rest of her life.

* * *

Two weeks into their journey, Tzipporah shaded her eyes to squint at something in the distance. She swore at what she saw.

“What is it?” Miriam asked. She was walking beside the camel while Tzipporah rode, and so could not see what Tzipporah was looking at.

“Sandstorm,” Tzipporah said. “Moving fast.”

Miriam had seen sandstorms at a distance, but had never experienced the misfortune of being caught in one.

“Is there time to avoid it?”

Tzipporah dismounted. “No,” she said. She wore a scarf loosely around her neck. She removed it now and dampened it with water from her canteen.

“There’s an extra scarf in the saddlebags,” she said. “Get it wet and wrap it around your face. Cover everything, but especially your mouth and nose. If you breathe in sand, you’ll suffocate. We don’t have any shelter, but if I can get the camel to lay down, we can use it as a windbreak.”

Miriam did as Tzipporah said. The camel, no doubt seeing the sandstorm as well, became increasingly skittish. It grunted and jerked against the reins, ignoring Tzipporah’s commands. When she tried to pull its head down by force, the camel drew its lips back and bit her arm.

“You demon-possessed son of a -!” Whatever Tzipporah had been about to say was lost as the camel pulled free and galloped off.

Miriam could hear the sandstorm now. It made a low, steady roar, like the cry of a hungry beast. She adjusted the scarf, reluctant to cover her eyes.

Tzipporah yanked her own scarf down to say, “Pull it over your eyes too. Flying sand can blind you.”

Miriam obeyed. Tzipporah’s hand on her shoulder pushed her to the ground. She felt Tzipporah settle against her back, holding her tightly. The sandstorm howled behind them.

_She’s using herself as a windbreak_, Miriam thought.

Then she stopped thinking, because the storm was upon them. Sand stung her exposed skin. It poured down like rain, swallowed her like a flood. Even with the scarf as protection, tiny grains forced their way into her mouth, tasting of stone and salt. She couldn’t hear the roar anymore, or maybe it was all she could hear. She clutched at Tzipporah’s arm, but felt her slipping away.

_ No! _

Wind ripped at them. Tzipporah’s fingernails caught on Miriam’s sleeve. Miriam grabbed for her wrist, but the storm tore Tzipporah from her.

Miriam did not remember blacking out, but she must have done so, because she was suddenly aware of being awake. Sand covered her. She flailed in a panic, having no idea which way led up to sunlight and air.

God was on her side. She saw light through the scarf and clawed her way towards it. She emerged out of the sand, pulled the scarf off, and gasped in breaths until her lungs ached. A clean, smooth layer of sand covered everything. She saw no tracks from the camel. She saw no sign of Tzipporah.

Standing made her dizzy, but she got to her feet and stumbled in a circle. God would not take Tzipporah from her. Not now, not after everything they had been through.

“Tzipporah!” Her voice emerged as a croak. Her throat felt like the cracked mud of a dry river. She fell to her knees and began to dig. Tzipporah had to be nearby. She had to be hurt or buried or both. Miriam felt wetness on her cheeks. Her vision blurred. How long had it been since she had cried? Weeks, at least. She had cried often in Egypt, weeping with pain from the whip or grief for her shattered family. Only with Tzipporah had she learned to live a life without tears.

A streak of blue appeared under her hands. Sand reburied it, but she lunged at the spot where it had vanished, digging frantically. Bit by bit, Tzipporah’s sleeve appeared. Her hand lay limp, but when Miriam grabbed her wrist and tried to pull her out, she felt a weak pulse still beating.

Miriam kept digging, aiming for where she guessed Tzipporah’s face was.

_ “If you breathe in sand, you’ll suffocate.” _

Her throat felt raw from sand and heat. She could too easily imagine Tzipporah’s makeshift mask failing, sand rushing down her throat.

“God, please.” She didn’t finish the prayer out loud. God knew how much Tzipporah meant to her.

_ God, if this is punishment for the Asherah pole, I’ll never go there again. If it’s punishment for staying in Midian, I’ll leave tonight. I will do anything you ask of me. Just give me Tzipporah back_.

Tzipporah’s face emerged. She still had the scarf. More digging, more pulling, and then she was free from the sand. Her eyes were closed, and she did not respond to Miriam calling her name. Miriam untied the scarf, thinking that Tzipporah would be able to breathe easier without it. A trickle of blood ran from the corner of Tzipporah’s mouth. Miriam wiped it away, her hands shaking.

“_El na refa na la _ ,” she whispered. _ God, please heal her, please. _

Tzipporah coughed. She jerked halfway upright before crumpling back to the ground. She coughed again, spitting up blood and sand. Miriam held her, feeling the shudder of each rasping breath.

“Water,” Tzipporah managed.

The camel had carried most of their water, but Miriam still had a canteen. She knew better than to be caught without water in a desert. She held the canteen to Tzipporah’s lips. Tzipporah spat out the first sip, but drank the rest. When she finished, she wiped her mouth, leaving a streak of blood smeared across her chin.

“Bit my tongue,” she said.

“Are you hurt anywhere else?”

“My ankle.” Tzipporah gestured to her left ankle. It lay twisted at a painful angle. “Landed on it. I think it’s sprained.”

Miriam checked, and Tzipporah inhaled sharply.

“It’s broken,” Miriam said. “Can you stand?”

Tzipporah tried and failed. She lay panting on the ground. Miriam knelt beside her.

“I can’t walk back,” Tzipporah said. “You’ll have to go to the camp and get help.”

“I’m not leaving you.”

“Do you have a better idea?”

“Yes,” said Miriam. “Staying here with you.”

Tzipporah opened her mouth to object, but Miriam rushed on. “The camel will go back to camp. When it shows up without us, Jethro will send a search party.”

“They won’t know where we are. It could take weeks to find us.”

“God will protect us,” Miriam said.

“He didn’t do us any favors by sending that sandstorm.”

“We’re alive,” Miriam replied. “That means He’s still watching over us.”

Tzipporah laid an arm over Miriam’s shoulder.

“Help me stand,” she said.

With Tzipporah leaning her weight against Miriam, the two of them managed to stagger on for a distance that felt like miles but was probably much less. Tzipporah insisted she knew the direction back to camp, though Miriam had no idea how she was navigating. The sinking sun indicated west, but no stars had emerged. The shifting dunes provided no landmarks. But Miriam trusted Tzipporah, so she followed her directions until Tzipporah could go no further. Then the two of them simply collapsed in the sand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The idea that a disease could be blown away by wind is part of miasma theory, which is an ancient and inaccurate medical hypothesis.
> 
> “El na refa na la” is a Jewish healing prayer. It’s spoken in Numbers 12:13 by Moses on Miriam’s behalf. I like to imagine that Miriam said it on behalf of someone else first.


	28. Announcement - On Hiatus

Hi everyone,  
Due to personal events coinciding with the High Holy Days, I have not had time to finish editing this week's chapter. It's going to be an important one, and I want to do it justice, so I'm putting this story on temporary hiatus. New chapters will start going up again by November at the latest. Thank you for your patience and support.


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